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EQUALITY

Protesters gather in Milan as Italy limits same-sex parents’ rights

Hundreds of people took to the streets of Milan on Saturday in protest against a new government directive stopping local authorities from registering the births of same-sex couples' children.

Published: 18 March 2023 17:24 CET
Protesters gather in Milan as Italy limits same-sex parents' rights
A woman holds a placard reading "explain to my son that I am not his mother" at a protest held by gay rights and civil society groups in Milan in March 2023 against moves by Italy's hard-right government to restrict the rights of same-sex parents. (Photo by Gabriel BOUYS / AFP)

“You explain to my son that I’m not his mother,” read one sign held up amid a sea of rainbow flags that filled the northern city’s central Scala Square.

Italy legalised same-sex civil unions in 2016, but opposition from the Catholic Church meant it stopped short of granting gay couples the right to adopt.

Decisions have instead been made on a case-by-case basis by the courts as parents take legal action, although some local authorities decided to act unilaterally.

Milan’s city hall had been recognising children of same-sex couples conceived overseas through surrogacy, which is illegal in Italy, or medically assisted reproduction, which is only available for heterosexual couples.

But its centre-left mayor Beppe Sala revealed earlier this week that this had stopped after the interior ministry sent a letter insisting that the courts must decide.

READ ALSO: Milan stops recognising children born to same-sex couples

“It is an obvious step backwards from a political and social point of view, and I put myself in the shoes of those parents who thought they could count on this possibility in Milan,” he said in a podcast, vowing to fight the change.

Milan's mayor Giuseppe Sala

Milan’s mayor Giuseppe Sala has assured residents that he will fight to have the new government directive overturned. Photo by Miguel MEDINA / AFP

Fabrizio Marrazzo of the Gay Party said about 20 children are waiting to be registered in Milan, condemning the change as “unjust and discriminatory”.

A mother or father who is not legally recognised as their child’s parent can face huge bureaucratic problems, with the risk of losing the child if the registered parent dies or the couple’s relationship breaks down.

Elly Schlein, newly elected leader of the centre-left Democratic Party, was among opposition politicians who attended the protest on Saturday, where many campaigners railed against the new government.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party came top in the September elections, puts a strong emphasis on traditional family values.

“Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby!” she said in a speech last year before her election at the head of a right-wing coalition that includes Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigration League.

Earlier this week, a Senate committee voted against an EU plan to oblige member states to recognise the rights of same-sex parents granted elsewhere in the bloc.

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MIGRANT CRISIS

Italian PM Meloni blasts judge who rejected ‘unconstitutional’ anti-migrant law

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Monday she was 'stunned' after a Sicilian judge ruled her government's latest decree was not compatible with either Italy's constitution or European law.

Published: 2 October 2023 15:18 CEST
Italian PM Meloni blasts judge who rejected 'unconstitutional' anti-migrant law

Faced with a surge in the numbers of migrants arriving on Italy’s shores, Meloni’s coalition – elected a year ago vowing to stop illegal immigration – has issued a series of decree laws, including one it says will speed up the deportation of those who would not normally qualify for asylum.

READ ALSO: Italy to detain migrants for longer as arrival numbers surge

On Friday, a judge in Catania released a detained Tunisian migrant after ruling that a September decree law, which included requiring certain migrants to pay 5,000 euros in bail to avoid transfer to a detention centre, violated EU and Italian law.

Meloni, who leads the post-Fascist Brothers of Italy party, on Monday railed against the judge on social media, writing that she was “stunned” by the ruling.

The judge “freed an illegal immigrant, already the recipient of an expulsion order, unilaterally declaring Tunisia an unsafe country… and lashing out against the measures of a democratically elected government”, she wrote.

The government has sought to fast-track deportations.

It has created an “accelerated” repatriation centre in the Sicilian city of Pozzallo to hold recently arrived migrants from Tunisia and Egypt, which both have deals with Italy that help to speed deportations.

Rome considers Tunisia a “safe country” whose citizens are not escaping war or persecution, hence rarely qualifying for international protection.

IN NUMBERS: Five graphs to understand migration to Italy

In Friday’s court’s decision, seen by AFP, the judge ruled the government decree was unlawful as it did not provide for asylum claims from migrants from safe countries to be assessed on an individual basis.

Moreover, the judge found the decree did not allow third parties, such as migrant associations, to pay the 5,000-euro bail on behalf of the migrant, as allowed under European Union law.

Italy’s Association for Legal Studies on Immigration (ASG), which studies case law related to migrants, said the government’s recent measures amounted to “a bad way of legislating that stems from a wrong political approach and an irrational response to an ordinary phenomenon in our society”.

“The current government, in just one year, has intervened with nine regulatory acts on immigration and asylum law, transposing into the legal system political confusion, administrative inability to deal with the migration phenomenon and authoritarian impulses worthy of the darkest historical eras,” it said.   

READ ALSO: What’s behind Italy’s soaring number of migrant arrivals?

The leader of the centre-left Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, charged that Meloni, in taking on a judge, was “spurring a clash between institutions that damages the country”.

“Stop looking for an enemy every day to hide your responsibilities,” she wrote.

Italy’s hard-right government, she said, “writes blatantly unconstitutional laws and then takes it out on the judges who do their job”.

The interior ministry plans to challenge the judge’s decision, according to news agency AGI.

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