On 11 May the head of the Civil Protection Department in Italy issued a new ordinance detailing new measures on reception for unaccompanied foreign minors, in response to the recent exceptional increase in migration flows.

Arrival numbers remain significantly lower than in 2014 - 2016, however on 8 May the Italian government announced a state of emergency in response to “the exceptional increase in migration flows” and the fact that “the reception system is saturated”. This emergency declaration allows the Civil Protection Department to make decisions relating to migrant reception and management that deviate from existing regulations.

One of the department's first acts within this framework was to outline specific measures to extend the capacity of reception centres to host unaccompanied minors, and to allow deviation from the community capacity limits set by regional and local regulations.

In addition, on 3 May the Central Directorate of Civil Services for Immigration and Asylum of the Ministry of the Interior approved a list of projects entitled "Strengthening of services for unaccompanied foreign minors", to be financed with almost 60 million euros from the European Commission's Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF). The 14 projects will guarantee, from 1 July 2023 to 9 January 2026, 1 000 additional places for unaccompanied foreign minors in the first reception system.

This increase in available places represents a positive step in the protection of unaccompanied minors in Italy. In addition, NGO Save the Children recently identified several improvements that could be made to the system in order to even further improve the protection and integration of foreign youth in Italy. These relate in particular to the long periods minors currently spend detained in hotspots and adult centres before being moved to youth accommodation, and question the recent initiative to expand the capacity of hotspots on the mainland.