Italy: Dismembering The Mafia, One Child At A Time (Includes video)
Agence France-Presse – January 13, 2021
Lucia urged her six-year old twins to move quickly but quietly as she bundled them into the car under cover of darkness. Their escape from the town of Cinquefrondi is one of dozens of interventions since 2012 to distance children, and sometimes their mothers, from families belonging to the ‘Ndrangheta, one of the world’s most powerful mafias. The scheme, believed by its founder, juvenile judge Roberto Di Bella, to be the first of its kind, aims to prevent at-risk children following their parents into a life of organised crime. Despite initial outcries of “child-snatching”, the judicial programme has become a government-approved anti-mafia protocol in Italy, so far involving more than 80 minors. Di Bella believes it could be rolled out to prevent children falling prey to other organised crime groups in Italy and abroad.
https://www.ibtimes.com/dismembering-mafia-one-child-time-3121625