Children forced to murder unfaithful Mafiosa mothers given protection by Italian authorities
Story by Nick Squires • 21h • 3 min read
Children of Italian gangsters, including some who have been ordered to kill their mothers for suspected infidelity, are being placed in foster care or moved to safe houses under a newly expanded scheme.

Until now, only children born into the Mafia clans that make up the ‘Ndrangheta in the southern region of Calabria were being removed by the authorities, but the scheme has now been expanded to cover Italy’s two other organised crime networks.

Removing children from clans, with the consent of their mothers where possible, is often the only way to prevent them from drifting into a life of crime investigators say.

The scheme was originally established in 2012 by Roberto Di Bella, a judge in a family court in Calabria.
It has proven so effective that it will now be extended to the region of Campania, where the Camorra Mafia holds sway, and Sicily, the domain of Cosa Nostra.

The expansion of the project, which is called Liberi di Scegliere or Free to Choose, was announced by the Italian justice ministry.

Carlo Nordio, the justice minister, said it represented “a historic moment in the fight against the Mafia”.

Judge Di Bella said with the help of the Roman Catholic Church, the scheme had rescued 150 children and 30 women “from the iron grip of ‘Ndrangheta clans and a life of crime”.

Seven of the women had agreed to collaborate with the justice system and inform on the criminal activities of their husbands.

The children are either placed with foster families or in communities in secret locations across the country, ideally accompanied by their mothers.

“The battle against the Mafia is above all cultural. You have to remove them from a context in which they are condemned to a single destiny,” Judge Di Bella told La Repubblica, an Italian daily.

He said he had presided over dozens of trials which had involved “entire generations” of ‘Ndrangheta families, with fathers enrolling their sons through the power of blood bonds and family obligations.

“I have seen kids of eight who were forced to shoot people, put to work as messengers and drug pushers in the piazzas. I’ve seen kids kill their own mothers to punish them, according to a supposed code of honour, for marital infidelity.”

Judges had an obligation to try to save such children from Mafia violence, he said.

“And there are more and more mothers who realise that, as well as giving their children a different future, they too can have a new life. They ask us to take them away from these situations.”

He acknowledged that the scheme is not cheap. “To keep a mother and her child in a safe location costs at least €100 (£85) a day. Without a new identity, these women cannot work.”

Andrea Ostellari, the deputy justice minister, said: “The Mafia will cease to exist when we are able to break the circuit of criminality between parents and children.”

‘Toxic links’
By freeing children from the “toxic links” that bind them to criminal clans, the authorities are able to starve Mafia organisations of “new recruits”, he said. Women often risk their lives by leaving their husbands in search of a better life for their children, Mr Ostellari said.

The name ‘Ndrangheta is Greek in origin and means “society of men of honour”. Its roots go back to the 19th century.

The Calabrian Mafia makes a fortune from drug dealing, in particular importing cocaine from South America.

Estimating its revenues is hard but Nicola Gratteri, a leading anti-Mafia prosecutor, believes the ‘Ndrangheta has an annual turnover of about £40 billion.