Turning the invisible into the visible: stateless children in Italy

This chapter highlights a number of concerns embedded in the hybrid nature of statelessness and quasi-statelessness as experienced by children in Italy. Children in many instances have legitimate claims to citizenship but are often unable to demonstrate it; for example, because of a lack of official identity documentation (e.g., birth records). Although it is rather challenging to enumerate people who are legally excluded, most recent estimates indicate that almost 15,000 Roma children born in Italy find themselves in a limbo of legal invisibility. By examining the international and national legal structures that seek to classify stateless children, this chapter contextualizes some key problems encountered by them, and it identifies the promises of durable solutions put in place by current legislation.