I diritti violati: la tutela nazionale e internazionale dei minori

The article offers some reflections based upon papers discussed in a Congress whose topic was the legal system of protection of minors. The idea that runs under the discussion is the recognition of the role of a minor as subject of individual rights, since for many years minors has been invisible, and considered only as object of a protection directed toward the family or the society. Child abuse has been considered, as long as the perspective of the minor as author of crimes, in connection with the problem of the age of accountability, and of that of different and specific forms of detention measured on the characteristic of young persons viewed under the influence of UE and international legislation. Child abuse has been particularly focused in a comparative perspective, with data coming from the experience of African and South American countries and from the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Child work and child labour too has been detected, with a special reflection given to the drama of child soldiers, that has recently been recognized: The ICC in March 2012 has in her first decision found Thomas Lubanga, former Chief Officer of a rebel Militia in Congo, guilty of war crimes for having recruited as soldiers a large amount of children under the age of 15.