Missing minors: the CNDDU expresses alarm and calls on educational institutions to take on civil and educational responsibility.

On the occasion of the International Missing Children’s Day, yesterday May 25, the National Coordination of Teachers of Human Rights wishes to express deep concern regarding the data published in the Telefono Azzurro report, which outline a dramatic and unacceptable situation: over 8,000 missing minors in Italy in the first six months of 2024, representing 69.6% of the total missing reports, with an overwhelming prevalence of teenagers between 16 and 17 years old and a significant incidence among foreign minors

ITALY. This is a phenomenon that can no longer be reduced to an episodic emergency or a marginal problem: it is a real educational, social, and cultural emergency that requires the synergistic intervention of all institutions, starting from schools, which represent the first point of listening, prevention, and support for young people in the most fragile moments of their growth.

The CNDDU strongly emphasizes the strategic role of schools:

• as a place of welcome and inclusion, especially for foreign minors, often lacking strong family networks;
• as a space to build meaningful relationships and prevent psychological and social distress;
• as an environment for human rights education, self-awareness, protection of personal dignity, and respect for others;
• as a point of connection between families, social services, and the community, capable of detecting signs of distress and promptly activating forms of protection.

36.5% of missing persons are due to running away from home, a fact that questions us about how much still needs to be done to build emotional and community contexts capable of protecting, understanding, and supporting minors, especially in the delicate adolescent stage.

The CNDDU asks:

• systematic inclusion in school curricula of training courses on children’s rights, emotional education, psychological well-being, and the fight against school dropout;
• strengthening the role of school psychologists and stable multidisciplinary teams in every school, especially in areas with high social vulnerability;
• a national permanent network among schools, social services, law enforcement, and Third Sector organizations involved in child protection, for an integrated and timely response to risk signals;
• greater promotion of the European number for missing children (116,000), still too little known, despite its vital importance.

Society has the moral and civil duty not to look the other way. Every missing child is a broken story, an unheard cry for help, a missed collective responsibility.

The CNDDU reaffirms its commitment to a school that is increasingly attentive, inclusive, and proactive in defending the fundamental rights of children and adolescents. There can be no education without protection. There can be no school without humanity.