ROME, June 14 (Xinhua) -- More and more unaccompanied children and teens are arriving on migrant and refugee boats, and they remain at risk when they reach Italy, according to a report by Save the Children NGO released Wednesday.
The non-governmental organization's "Atlas of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors in Italy" maps the stories, the data and the trajectories of refugee children and teens in Italy over a period of six years, beginning with the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011.
Save the Children said in a statement that between January 2011 and December 2016, a total of 62,672 children and teens disembarked in Italy without their parents or any relatives.
The youngsters are mostly from the countries of Afghanistan, Eritrea, Egypt, Gambia, Nigeria, and Somalia, and also from Syria, where a civil war has been raging since 2011.
Their numbers have been rising exponentially: while 4,209 child and teen migrants and refugees reached Italy in 2011, their number had swelled to 25,846 such arrivals in 2016, said the humanitarian group.
"The risk to which they are most exposed in big cities such as Rome and Milan is that of being exploited on the black labor market, in illegal activities or in prostitution, in order to quickly pay off the debts to the migrant traffickers that weigh on their families," Save the Children wrote.
The number of female children and teens reaching Italy without adult guardians has quadrupled from 440 in 2012 to 1,832 in 2016.
They are strongly at risk of trafficking for purposes of enforced prostitution, and many report being repeatedly raped during their voyages towards Europe, according to the NGO.
This is especially the case for young Eritrean and Nigerians, the NGO said in the statement. "The majority of unaccompanied foreign minors present in our country have reached it by crossing the central Mediterranean Sea," Save the Children said.
"There are more and more unaccompanied minors, they are younger and younger and more and more vulnerable" to exploitation and trafficking.
"Too often, their presence has been met with an inadequate response," said the humanitarian organization, which operates in 120 countries and regions around the world to provide the young with health care, education, and disaster relief.
Over 1.3 million people, families and children have risked their lives to reach the European continent since 2015, according to Save the Children.
Over 73,000 people have reached Europe by sea so far this year, and 1,808 are confirmed to have died in the attempt, according to the United Nations-affiliated International Organization for Migration (IOM). Enditem
