A total 62,672 child migrants landed in Italy alone last year - a sixfold increase from 2011 - the Save the Children charity said Wednesday, calling for the urgent enactment of a new law protecting the "increasingly vulnerable" group.
Most of the unaccompanied minors came from Eritrea, Egypt, Gambia, Somalia , Nigeria and Syria and last year made up one in six of migrants who sailed to Italy from North Africa, Save the Children Italy said in its new report.
The age of the unaccompanied child minors is falling - those aged under 14 tripled from 2011-2016 while the number of girls quadrupled - said the report issued by the charity ahead of World Refugee Day on 20 June.
"Their presence is a structural phenomenon which too often meets with an inadequate response, also given the children's growing vulnerability due to their young age and (female) sex," the report stated.
A growing number of girls who made the perilous journey to Italy from Africa are Nigerians at risk being trafficked into prostitution, according to the report. Nigerian girls made up 717 out of the 1,832 unaccompanied female minors who landed in 2016 while "many" of the 440 Eritrean girls who landed reported "repeated sexual abuse", the report said.
Another ever-younger group were Egyptians, some aged just 12 or 13, who faced exploitation in major cities like Rome and Milan, working in the black economy, prostitution and "illegal activities" to pay off their family debts including their fares to the people smuggling gangs who trafficked them to Europe, according to the report.
"Awareness in recent years of the grave shortcomings of a fragmented reception system too often penalised by an emergency-oriented approach," led to landmark legislation in Italy in March aimed at protecting unaccompanied minors, said Save the Children's director of Italy-Europe programmes, Raffaela Milano.
"It is now crucial that the law be applied soonest in its entirety to ensure an adequate reception system and the necessary protection for all of these children and adolescents who are trying to build a future," Milano said.
The law, the first of its kind in Europe, outlines comprehensive standards of care for unaccompanied migrant children arriving in Italy, including a strict ban on turning them back at the border.
