Author
Reception conditions vary considerably not only among different reception centres but also between the same type of facility. While the services provided are supposed to be the same, the quality can differ depending on the entity managing the centres. The SAI system publishes annual reports on its functioning,[1] but there are no comprehensive and updated reports on reception conditions for the entire Italian territory.
The latest CERD report from 2021 expressed concern about the “deplorable living conditions in reception centres for migrants and the further reduction of the availability of psychological and legal services, as well as counselling”.[2]
It is not possible to determine an overall average of duration of stay within reception facilities. However, asylum applicants remain in reception centres throughout the whole asylum procedure, which may last several months, as well as during the appeal procedure, that can last up to 3-4 years, depending on the workload and backlog within the relevant court (See Access and Forms of Reception Conditions).
Services provided
The 2018 “Security Decree” marked a major change in the approach to reception, leading to a system based on large CAS centres, attracting for-profit companies and effectively cutting out small local cooperatives from participating in public calls for the management of centres. The very low numbers of operators benefitting from available funds, compared to the number of guests, led to the loss of many jobs and the services’ cut made reception a mere management of food and accommodation, also reducing the positive effects on the host territories, in terms of income and social and labour integration.
Decree Law 130/2020 maintained the distinction between a range of services addressed to asylum applicants and others reserved exclusively to beneficiaries of protection, thus replicating the policy of restricting high level services only to protection holders – or at least to migrants having obtained a more stable residence permit-, contrary to a logic of generalised protection, ultimately considerably slowing down the process of regaining self-sufficiency for asylum applicants.
As highlighted by ActionAid and Openpolis in their report,[3] between 2018 and 2021, over 3,500 reception facilities were closed (-29.1%) throughout the country, while available places fell from 169,471 to 97,670 in the same period. The centres that underwent closure were mainly small-medium sized ones, while at the same time, larger CAS facilities often saw an increase in their capacity.
Following the 2023 reform, on 27 March 2024, new tender specification schemes for reception services in government centres and CAS were published.[4] The schemes[5] grant discretion to reception bodies regarding the provision of certain services that used to be compulsory under DL 130/2020. According to Article 2 of the tender specifications’ schemes, psychological assistance, Italian language courses and professional training, legal and territorial orientation, are listed as possible subcategories of social assistance, but there is no obligation for the service provider to ensure their accessibility to asylum applicants.
In addition, in the new provisional centres, the services are even more limited, as only services relating to food, accommodation, clothing, healthcare and linguistic-cultural mediation are ensured.
If applicants are admitted into SAI centres, they still only have access to so-called “first level” services, which do not include support for integration on the territory, job search, job orientation and professional training. These services, that are completely absent within the governmental and temporary centres (CAS), in SAI are restricted only to beneficiaries of national or international protection.[6]
The 2023 reform unfortunately reflects the same approach as the 2018 reform and maintains the limits of the 2020 reform: SAI are still activated on a voluntary basis at the local level; access to SAI centres is limited to few categories of asylum applicants and essential services are no longer mandatory and therefore left to the discretion of the managing body.
With increasing frequency since 2022, beneficiaries of international protection are notified of the termination of reception conditions in CAS immediately after receiving the residence permit or even the mere decision recognising the international or special protection, without a previous check for available places in SAI being carried out.
Unaccompanied children who, on paper, should have immediate access to SAI, still spend most of their accommodation period in first governmental centres, temporary structures or in residential care facilities (see Reception for unaccompanied minors) and those who reach majority (18 years of age) while still within the reception system and benefit from an administrative extension of guardianship, who are also entitled to access SAI, still remain, in practice, excluded from these centres.
Conditions in hotspots
Current contracts provide that the following services should be delivered within the hotspot facilities: information provision on the asylum procedure and the reception system, social assistance, psychological assistance, preparation and distribution of meals, health care, provision of clothing and personal hygiene products, telephone card.[7] These services must be provided with the proper care and methodologies when working with unaccompanied minors or vulnerable individuals.
The stay within hotspots should be limited to the time strictly necessary to carry out the identification and initiation of legal procedures. Italian law, however, does not provide for a maximum duration of stay, although these are, in practice, and without a legal basis, closed structures in which personal freedom is limited.
Lampedusa hotspot
This is particularly the case for the hotspot on the island of Lampedusa, which, despite its official capacity of 389 places, has often accommodated much higher numbers of newly arrived migrants.
This led to the replacement of the managing body and the subsequent entrusting of the facility to the Italian Red Cross from May 2023 onwards.[8] Despite the change in management, the critical issues that had emerged in previous years continue to be denounced by ASGI.[9]
Save the Children, active within the hotspot of Lampedusa, has denounced a now permanent situation of delays and shortcomings in the provision of the most basic services, even when directed to the most vulnerable. In 2023, the NGO reported that 450 minors, 250 of whom unaccompanied, even very small children, had been present in the hotspot for over a month.[10] UNICEF also noted severe crowding and delays identified as risk factors for the most vulnerable.[11]
According to data provided by the Italian Red Cross, the number of children accommodated at the Lampedusa hotspot as part of family units steadily declined between 2023 and 2025. In 2023, a total of 3,422 children arrived within 2,407 family units. This figure decreased to 2,498 children in 2,069 family units in 2024 and fell further to 1,182 children belonging to 1,107 family units in 2025. In 2025, the average age of these children was 11 years. The largest groups originated from Eritrea (17%), followed by Syria (13%), Sudan (11%), Guinea (11%), Egypt (8%), Tunisia (6%), Libya (4%), Nigeria (4%), Ethiopia (3%), and Côte d’Ivoire (3%), while the remaining 20% came from various other countries. Although these figures indicate a gradual decline in the number of accompanied children transiting through the Lampedusa hotspot, they also highlight the continued diversity of countries of origin and the ongoing need to ensure adequate protection and reception measures for this particularly vulnerable population.[12]
ASGI, as part of its InLimine project, carried out monitoring, data collection and a visit to the hotspot in March 2022, following which it produced a report highlighting the numerous critical issues identified.[13]
ASGI has presented urgent appeals to the European Court of Human Rights to request the immediate transfer from the hotspot of Lampedusa of three families, including children, who were detained there for varying periods and in degrading material and hygienic conditions. By 10 November 2022, the Court ordered the Government to immediately transfer only one of the families.[14]
In March 2023, the ECtHR delivered its judgement on the case J.A. and Others v. Italy,[15] concerning four Tunisian nationals who were rescued by an Italian ship and taken to the Lampedusa hotspot. The Court ruled that the applicants were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment during their stay in the Lampedusa hotspot, in violation of Article 3 of the Convention. Additionally, it stated that the impossibility for the applicants to lawfully leave the closed area of the hotspot clearly amounts to deprivation of liberty under Article 5 of the Convention, especially considering that the maximum duration of their stay in the crisis centre was not defined by any law and that the regulatory framework did not allow the use of the Lampedusa hotspot as a detention centre for foreigners. The applicants were neither informed of the legal reasons for their deprivation of liberty nor able to challenge the grounds of their de facto detention. Hence, the Court held that Italy violated Article 5 §§ 1, 2 and 4 of the Convention.
In its decision published on 13 June 2024, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe assessed that Italy had failed to adequately implement the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights J.A. and others v. Italy (Appeal No. 21329/18) on detention and conditions inside the Lampedusa hotspot and called on the authorities to take the necessary measures for its implementation.[16]
Taranto hotspot
Regarding the Taranto hotspot, in its 23 November 2023 decision rendered in case no. 47287/17 (A.T. and others v. Italy),[17] the ECtHR condemned Italy for having unlawfully detained several unaccompanied minors in the hotspot, for having used inhuman and degrading treatment in arranging their reception measures, for not having appointed a guardian nor having provided them with any information on the possibility of challenging this condition in court.
Further critical issues were reported in 2023 in a report published by the University of Bari on the Taranto hotspot, which denounced the inadequacy of the legal information offered to persons entering the facility, the confusion between intelligence and investigative activities carried out during entry security checks, with potential repercussions on the rights of the persons under investigation, the inadequate material reception conditions to guarantee privacy and the protection of persons in particularly vulnerable conditions (women and minors).[18]
Pozzallo hotspot
In June 2023, a delegation of ASGI had access to the Pozzallo hotspot and found several problems including the absence of cultural mediators to support the procedures after entering the hotspot (e.g. during the compilation and signing of the so-called “foglio-notizie”) and the duration of detention.[19]
The practice of the Prefecture of Ragusa, particularly with the facilities located in Pozzallo and Contrada Cifali, can be regarded as an early example of broader trends in the management of unaccompanied foreign minors (UFMs) within the Italian reception system. Between October 2023 and November 2025, a total of 542 UFMs transited through the Pozzallo hotspot, including 509 boys and 33 girls. In addition, 158 minors were accommodated at the Contrada Cifali facility between October and December 2023. According to the Prefecture, the average length of stay in both facilities was generally limited to one or two days, with longer stays occurring only in cases where serious health conditions required extended medical care before transfer to appropriate reception facilities.[20]
Overall conditions
According to the law, first reception centres offer accommodation to asylum applicants for the purpose of completion of operations necessary for the determination of their legal status,[21] and of medical tests for the detection of vulnerabilities, to take into account for a subsequent and more focused placement.[22]
First reception centres are collective centres, up until now set up in large facilities, isolated from urban centres and with poor or otherwise difficult contacts with the outside world.
Overall, governmental centres are very often overcrowded. Accordingly, the quality of the reception services offered is not equivalent to reception facilities of smaller size.
Responding to the FOIA request made by ASGI regarding occupancy as of 31 December 2025, the Ministry of Interior only indicated the centres’ official capacity, not actual occupancy. As of 31 December 2024, while the capacity of governmental centres was 3,540, the occupancy was 3,724. Some centres were particularly overcrowded: in Gradisca d’Isonzo, with a capacity of 303, 414 asylum applicants were present; in Bari, there were 850 people, on 640 available places, in Manfredonia, 140 people on 80 places and in Treviso 545 asylum applicants compared to a capacity of 450.
These practices were furter compounded by Legislative Decree 133/2023, converted with amendments by Law 176/2023, which made it possible to derogate from the maximum capacity of government reception centres and CAS facilities. Under these rules, occupancy way reach up to twice the official capacity to meet ‘the needs of public order and security related to the management of migration flows’.[23]
Managers tend to accommodate together people of the same nationality or belonging to the same ethnicities, religions, or political groups to prevent the rise of tensions and violence.
Law 50/2023, which converts Decree Law 20/2023, adopted by the new Government, again drastically reduced the list of mandatory services within governmental centres and CAS, to: health care, social assistance and linguistic-cultural mediation. These new regulations were followed by a new set of tender schemes specifications for these centres, published on 27 March 2024.
The new schemes, as explained above (See Overview, Services provided) include other services (such as psychological assistance, Italian language courses and professional training, legal and territorial orientation) within the scope of social assistance. These services can be provided at the discretion of the managing body.[24]
According to a field investigation conducted by the NGOs Ospiti in Arrivo and Rete DASI and published on 2 May 2024, at least 150 migrants were sleeping in overcrowded conditions at the Cavarzerani CAS in Udine (Friuli Venezia Giulia), without access to basic services. Although they had already been registered in the police database (fotosegnalati), they had not been formally admitted to the reception centre and were therefore not officially registered as residents.[25] In 2026, the tenders procedure reduced the authorised capacity of the Cavarzerani CAS to 300 places. This reduction coincided with the commencement of demolition works affecting several buildings within the facility.
Conditions in CAS
According to the Reception Decree, services guaranteed in temporary centres (CAS) are the same as those guaranteed in first reception governmental centres.[26
Following the reform provided by the Decree Law 20/2023 converted into L. 50/2023, services were drastically reduced (see conditions in first reception centres). Also, DL 133/2023 converted into L. 176/2023 provided that, in cases of extreme urgency, it is possible to directly entrust management of the centres to the managing bodies and to wave the capacity limits of the centres and governmental facilities structures, allowing access to up to double the places foreseen for each centre.[27]
Given that the term CAS simply defines a legal category and not a type of structure, there are CAS activated in small apartments, as well as in collective centres of hundreds of places. Thus, the actual quality of the services and the very nature of the reception in CAS differ greatly.
The chronic emergency state under which the CAS operate has forced the improvisation of interventions and favoured the entry into the reception network of entities lacking the necessary skills or, in the worst cases, only interested in profits.
The functioning of CAS depends on a service contract between the management bodies and the local Prefectures and on the professionalism of the bodies involved.
As discussed in Forms and Levels of Material Reception Conditions, the calls for tenders modelled on the Ministry of Interior tender scheme of 20 November 2018 resulted in the disappearance of many virtuous projects,[28] while the new tender specification scheme keeps the reception panorama unchanged.
On 16 November 2023, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued the judgement on the case of Sadio v. Italy, no. 3571/17, regarding a Malian national who stayed in a reception centre in Cona, Italy, for a period of almost eight months. He alleged that his conditions in the reception facility were contrary to Article 3 ECHR, citing overcrowding, lack of proper heating and hot water, lack of medical, psychological, and legal assistance, as well as the centre having insufficient staff members and interpreters. He supported his allegations with photos, reports and a parliamentary question relating to the Cona centre. Additionally, he complained that there had been no effective remedy available in order to challenge this set of circumstances, tantamount to a violation of Article 13 ECHR. The Court relied on the previous case of Darboe and Camara v. Italy and saw no significant divergence in material conditions between the two cases. The Court unanimously considered, accordingly, that the length and conditions of Sadio’s stay in Cona constituted a breach of Article 3 ECHR. Given that the Italian Government “failed to indicate any specific remedy by which the applicant could have complained about his reception conditions in Cona”, the Court again unanimously agreed with the applicant, upholding that Article 13 ECHR had been violated.
In March 2024, the Verona Migrant Observatory filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office against the managing body San Francesco Società Cooperativa Sociale Onlus for the conditions at the Casaleone centre (Verona), where only 10 asylum seekers were accommodated. The observatory had detected: a low presence of operators; insufficient entry kit; no supply of underwear and clothes; deteriorating conditions of the house, broken glass, no furniture; Insufficient beds; not all bathrooms working, frequent absence of hot water; kitchen with mould and cockroaches, state of serious degradation of the boiler. Lack of pocket money and negligence in activating the necessary health protections.[29]
In March 2025, after a visit to two CAS of Canino and Grotte di Castro, in the province of Viterbo (Lazio), MP Scarpa filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office highlighting “unhealthy environments, lack of essential services and even children forced to live between infiltration and mould“.[30]
Conditions in Provisional centres
These centres were introduced by the DL 20/2023 converted into L. 50/2023[31] according to which, in case of unavailability of places in government centres and in CAS centres, people can be accommodated in provisional centres where only food, accommodation, clothing, healthcare and linguistic-cultural mediation are ensured.
Starting from the first half of August 2023, two temporary camps, consisting of container tents and gazebos, were set up in Parma, the Martorano and Cornocchio camps. The Ciac Onlus association immediately highlighted the disastrous situation in which the people brought to these centres found themselves, even directly after their arrival. For months, people did not have formal access to the asylum procedure and could therefore not be transferred to the CAS or SAI. Between August and October 2023, the Ciac Onlus association collected over 130 declarations of intention to ask for asylum and sent them to the competent Questura. CIAC reported 42 vulnerable people. However, only six of them were able to access the SAI system.[32]
Conditions in SAI
The SAI network is mainly made up of small facilities and rented apartments,[33] located in or close to city centres or, alternatively, well connected to cities through public transport. There, the few categories of asylum applicants who can now access SAI can benefit from first level services, which include more services than the ones guaranteed in in first accommodation facilities (CAS and governmental centres): material reception services, health care, social and psychological assistance, linguistic-cultural mediation, Italian language courses, legal orientation and orientation to the territorial services.[34] Second level services, which include job orientation and professional training, are reserved to beneficiaries of international protection, UAMs and beneficiaries of other forms of protection[35] (See Content of protection).
The fact that these projects are permanently structured and that the necessary resources are planned in time, and therefore not dependent on a downward bidding process, means that all these services can be promptly provided to those able to access this system, with no delay.
Conditions in makeshift camps
As detailed in the previous udpates to this country reports, available here, informal migrant settlements with poor or no access to basic services are widespread across Italy, and the 2018 reform worsened the situation. Reports and monitoring activities in Milan, Foggia, Rome, Trieste, Ventimiglia and other areas show persistent overcrowding, precarious living conditions, exploitation, and limited access to reception and services.
The report published in June 2025 by ANCI and Cittalia within the INCAS project financed by the Ministry of Labour, confirms that vulnerable people suffering labour exploitation often include asylum seekers and holders of international protection. The report explains that, “for the former, in particular, vulnerability is linked both to the long wait for their legal status to be defined, and to the fact that a prerequisite for staying in reception centres is not to receive incomes higher than the amount of the social allowance, a prerequisite that leads them to accept irregular working conditions. This fragility is further exacerbated by the pressing need to support the needs of families in the countries of origin, who have invested emotionally and economically in the migrants’ journey.”[36]
[1] See SAI website, https://l1nq.com/CqISE.
[2] UNCERD report, CERD/C/ITA/CO/21, available here.
[3] Actionaid and Openpolis, Centri d’Italia. Report 2022. Il vuoto dell’accoglienza, available at: https://bit.ly/3KZSaVo.
[4] As per Minister Decree, 4 March 2024. Schemes and Decree available at: bit.ly/3JU5KaZ.
[5] Available at: bit.ly/3ws5KvP.
[6] Article 1 sexies (2 bis) DL 416/1989, introduced by DL 130/2020.
[7] See MoI Decree 29 January 2021, Outline of tender documents for the supply of goods and services relating to the management and operation of the centres, attachment 6-bis, available at: https://bit.ly/41b1UAt.
[8] Article 5-bis (2) Decree Law 20/2023 converted with modifications into Law 50/2023.
[9] ASGI, ‘Per l’implementazione della libertà di corrispondenza con il mondo esterno e predisposizione di una rete wi-fi presso l’Hotspot di Lampedusa: diverse organizzazioni scrivono alle autorità competenti’, March 2023, available in Italian at: https://lc.cx/maYghO; ASGI, La privazione della libertà personale nell’hotspot di Lampedusa: il riscontro delle autorità competenti, March 2023, available in Italian at: https://lc.cx/gDj3y9; ASGI, ‘The right to information in the Lampedusa hotspot: the responsibilities of UNHCR’, April 2023, available at: https://lc.cx/MnCT6a; ASGI, ‘La Questura di Agrigento su ingressi e uscite dall’hotspot di Lampedusa’, May 2023, available in Italian at: https://lc.cx/zmx60e; ASGI, ‘La gestione dell’hotspot di Lampedusa: la Convenzione con la CRI’, July 2023, available in Italian at: https://lc.cx/w2w1u6.
[10] Save the Children, Hotspot sovraffollato a lampedusa: le condizioni critiche dei minori, 12 April 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/41YgFqV.
[11] UNICEF, Cronache di frontiera. Lampedusa: vite in hotspot, 10 May 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3MfcWiC.
[12] Save The Children, Nascosti in piena vista, July 2026, available in Italian here.
[13] ASGI, Report sulla visita al Centro hotspot di Lampedusa, Agosto 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3Oh74rW.
[14] See ASGI, Diritti violati nell’ hotspot di Lampedusa: per la CEDU il trattamento è disumano e degradante solo per le famiglie con minori, available at: https://bit.ly/3pLd2XP.
[15] J.A. and Others v. Italy (dec.), no. 21329/18, 30 March 2023, available here.
[16] ASGI, ‘Valutazione del Comitato dei Ministri: Inadempienza dell’Italia nell’attuazione della Sentenza CEDU sull’Hotspot di Lampedusa’, July 2024, available in Italian here.
[17] ECtHR, No. 18911/17 and two others, A.E. and others v. Italy, 16 November 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3VtXyVY.
[18] Università degli Studi di Bari, Rapporto sul centro hotspot di Taranto, Jean Monnet Working Paper 2/2023, October 2023, available in Italian at: https://lc.cx/8otIiD.
[19] ASGI, ‘Monitoraggio ASGI e Spazi Circolari a Pozzallo: hotspot, Contrada Cifali e il nuovo centro di trattenimento’, 9 October 2023, available in Italian at: https://lc.cx/2n5MBD.
[20] ActionAid, La frontiera ovunque. Centri d’Italia 2026, April 2026, available in Italia here.
[21] Article 9(1) Reception Decree.
[22] Article 9(4) Reception Decree.
[23] Art. 7, d.l. 133/2023 which amends article 11, par. 2, LD 142/2015.
[24] According to Article 2 of the tender specification schemes, as per Minister Decree, 4 March 2024. Schemes and Decree available at: bit.ly/3JU5KaZ.
[25] Invisibili ed escluse, a Udine centinaia di persone tagliate fuori dall’accoglienza, Altreconomia, 2 May 2024, available in italian at: https://bit.ly/3VaCkdL.
[26] Articles 11(2) and 10(1) Reception Decree.
[27] Article 11(2) Reception decree as amended by DL 133/2023. See the analysis from Actionaid, 18 October 2023, available in Italian at: https://l1nq.com/dnM01.
[28] This happened, for example, in Milan, Lombardy, where 11 third sector managers, in many cases small companies with a strong social vocation, decided not to participate in new tenders, See Openpolis and ActionAid, third report, available in Italian at: https://cutt.ly/7yONsIR. In Livorno, Tuscany, in 2019, the vast majority of third sector managers have decided not to participate in the new tenders. Therefore, all small and many medium-sized centres have closed and the number of available places in reception has drastically decreased. The migrants hosted in centres that have been closed have often been transferred to other locations. Others, not to abandon the integration paths developed over time, have decided to stay in Livorno with high risks of social marginality. See Openpolis and ActionAid, second report, available in Italian at: https://cutt.ly/uyONs8z.
[29] See Melyingpot, CAS di Casaleone (VR): incuria e stato di abbandono, available here.
[30] Civonline, 3 March 2025, «Condizioni inaccettabili nei Cas»available here.
[31] Article 11 ( 2 bis) LD 142/2015.
[32] See Chiusi dentro, Carnocchio e Martorano, due campi vissuti da vicino, Michele Rossi, pubblicazione a a cura di Rivolti ai Balcani. See also Ciac Onlus, Tre mesi di campi: diritti violati e zero servizi Possiamo accettare tutto questo in silenzio? available at: https://bit.ly/4aLtkBJ.
[33] In 2021, more than 84% of the facilities used in the SAI were apartments. See Rapporto Annuale SAI 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3JzyJ37.
[34] Article 1-sexies (2 bis, a) DL 416/1989, introduced by DL 130/2020.
[35] Article 1-sexies (2 bis, b) DL 416/1989.
[36] ANCI and Cittalia, Servizi e strumenti di governance dei comuni per sostenere le vittime di sfruttamento lavorativo, June 2025, available in Italian here.