Italian authorities are expanding the scope of a program to rescue children of mafia families to include organized crime groups in Sicily and Naples.
The scheme started in 2012 by juvenile judge Roberto Di Bella originally only covers children from Italy’s most powerful criminal organization, the ‘Ndrangheta that is based in the Calabria region.
It aims to prevent at-risk children from following their parents into a life of crime, breaking the cycle by which power is passed down the generations through blood ties and family loyalty.
Dubbed “Free to Choose,” it will now be extended to the country’s two other main organized crime strongholds: Sicily, home to the Cosa Nostra, and the Campania region — of which Naples is the capital — home to the Camorra.
“This is a historic moment in the fight against the mafia,” Justice Minister Carlo Nordio said as he presented a protocol signed by five ministers and the Catholic Church’s Italian Bishops’ Conference.
Since the scheme began, some 150 children have been placed with foster families or in communities in secret locations across the country, where they learn about life beyond the clans.
Di Bella said 30 mothers had chosen to follow their children, with seven of them turning state witness.
“Important mafia bosses have also become state collaborators to protect their children, including one who said he was doing it for his grandchildren,” he told Agence France-Presse.
Now a judge in Catania, he gets letters from jailed mobsters thanking him for helping save their children.
One letter to Di Bella, seen by AFP, was written by a mafia boss who had decided to turn state witness.
“I remembered when I was a boy, then in my mind’s eye I saw my son... (and knew) I have done the right thing,” the boss said.
“A parent is ready to give his life for his son. For my children, and my wife, I proposed to change mine.”
Families Minister Eugenia Roccella said women in clans had a crucial part to play.
Modern popular culture and the media often portrayed mobster wives as wielding power behind the scenes, issuing orders while their husbands were behind bars.
“But that is fiction. It is impossible for there to be forms of emancipation of women in this culture, which instead violates and destroys them,” she said.
“The role of women is to break the chain of cultural transmission... through disobedience,” specifically by removing herself and her children from the mafia, she said.
