Approfondimento

CENTRAL DIRECTORATE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS, CITIZENSHIP AND MINORITIES

 The basic aim of the Central Directorate for civil rights, citizenship and minorities is supporting and promoting the full enjoyment of constitutional freedoms, with special regard to citizenship, historical ethnic and linguistic minorities as well as to assistance to expatriates.
 Through the identification of the hindrances that prevent the exercise of civil rights, the Central Directorate carries out monitoring and promotional activities aimed at overcoming obstacles and forms of discrimination which often arise from outdated cultural models and biases. The Central Directorate pursues its aims also by adopting innovative strategies to stimulate synergies and networking between the public and private sectors, by focussing attention on voluntary organisations and associations' activities.
 The most significant activities carried out by the Central Directorate include the following: allocation of special subsidies to the victims of terrorism and organised crime; prevention of school dropping out and drug addiction, with a view to reaffirming compliance with the law; granting of Italian citizenship and recognition of statelessness status; study of ethnic and linguistic minorities living in Italy, in view of a society which is becoming increasingly multiracial and multicultural; elimination of cultural and practical hindrances deriving from the existence of state borders through transfrontier co-operation.
 Finally, the organisation of the Central Directorate includes two Units which liaise with and support the Bureau for the co-ordination of initiatives against racketeering and loan sharking and the Bureau for the co-ordination of initiatives in favour of mafia victims as well as six Services charged with the collection and analysis of documents to monitor the activities of public and private entities active in the social sector, as well as with legal controversies and representation before the courts.
 The Central Directorate is subdivided into the following Units and Services:

§ special subsidies to the victims of terrorism and mafia type crime;

§ measures to counter social vulnerability;

§ emergency assistance interventions and application of the 1956 New York Convention on the recovery abroad of maintenance;

§ citizenship (three Units);

§ minorities (both historical and recent);

§ inter-territorial co-operation;

§ border areas and minorities;

§ liaison with the Bureau for the co-ordination of initiatives against racketeering and loan sharking;

§ liaison with the Bureau for the co-ordination of initiatives in favour of mafia victims.

§ Documentation and information system (three Services);

§ Service III: monitoring of bodies active in the social sector;

§ Legal controversies and representation before the courts (two Services).