Fourteen foreign unaccompanied minors aged 15 to 17 were detained in the Taranto hotspot for several days in July 2017, in terribly unhygienic conditions and without the possibility to leave the facility or contact their parents.

The children came from Bangladesh, The Gambia, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoir, Mali and Ghana. The conditions in which they were detained were discovered by ASGI lawyers Maria Cesarea Angiuli and Dario Belluccio when they visited the Taranto hotspot. They were able to enter the hotspot in the company of Annalisa Pannarale, a parliamentarian of the Chamber of Deputies who made the visit possible.

In practice, hotspots are closed to lawyers, reporters and migrants' relatives, while the migrants held inside are not allowed to leave. Following their visit, the ASGI lawyers immediately filed an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which declared the case admissible in January.

Italy contests violations

The alleged human rights violations lodged against the Italian government pertain to Article 3 (prohibition of torture), Article 5 (right to liberty and security), Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

In particular, the right to personal liberty was violated because all unaccompanied minors were detained without a written order, without the possibility to file an appeal to the authorities or even to communicate with anyone outside the hotspot. Unfortunately, it isn't the first such story of child imprisonment at this hotspot.

The minors detained at the Taranto hotspot lived in inhuman and degrading conditions, being mixed with adults in the overcrowded facility. It is important to note that EU law holds that hotspots are not appropriate places for the reception of minors, and children should never be detained in these structures.

In this case, not only where minors detained, but they were also denied access to a legal guardian, let alone legal, social, sanitary and psychological assistance.

A request for clarification

Following the admission of the appeal, the ECtHR asked the Italian government for clarification regarding the claim that the minors had been detained illegally in the hotspot.

"The request for clarification from the ECtHR to the Italian government is important to counteract the lack of protections for minors that we found in the Taranto hotspot," explained the ASGI lawyers. "Being that the issue is very grave, and given the systemic violations encountered, these appeals are a way to shed light on the real functioning of the so-called 'hotspots.'"