Conflict issues regarding refugee children are currently a special area of work of the Consulate General of Ukraine in Naples. It is in the south that numerous lawsuits are ongoing - about 200 of them - regarding access to the children of Ukrainian guardians. Two regions appear to be the most problematic - Sicily and Calabria.
These are remote areas with seaside resorts, where from March 2022, more children from orphanages were transferred for temporary stay. They were accompanied by directors of orphanages or representatives recognized by Ukraine as state guardians.
Even before the full-scale war, cooperation with these regions was established through local associations, with the help of which children legally came for recreation and recovery. After the vacation, they returned home without any particular problems. But because of the war in Ukraine, Italian authorities changed the status of children. At the beginning, they were recognized as "unaccompanied foreign minors" and, in accordance with local legislation, Italian national guardians were assigned to them through the court. Therefore, the Ukrainian guardians, accordingly, were deprived of the right of guardianship. In many cases, this made it impossible for children to return to Ukraine without court permission.
Consul General of Ukraine in Naples Maksym Kovalenko says that at the end of last year, another negative decision was received from Sicily by the court of the city of Catania in the case of minors regarding several pupils of the orphanage "Smaragdove mischko" in the Donetsk region. Their transportation to Poland to a safe place, which was sought by the Ukrainian side, was found to be impractical.
"They explain that Ukrainian children have already adapted in Italy, have learned the language, have good and safe living conditions, they are under supervision, and there is no point in changing their place of residence. And our arguments were as follows: we transport children to safe conditions in third countries or to the western region of Ukraine, where there are guarantees of safety, children should not lose contact with their homeland and relatives, if they have them. The problem is that it all went to the judicial level, and no institution has the right to influence judges, as in Ukraine in the end." - states Consul General Maksym Kovalenko in a conversation with RFE/RL.
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