Three Italian associations have appealed against the 'nursery school bonus' created to support families during the coronavirus crisis, claiming it is discriminatory because it excludes "families of foreigners who have resided in Italy for a short period of time".
On May 18, the League for the rights of the disabled (LEDHA) said it has presented an appeal, together with the Association of juridical studies on immigration (ASGI) and Avvocati per niente (Lawyers for nothing), "against a measure of the council of ministers that has limited the right" to apply for the so-called 'nursery school bonus' "to Italian citizens and foreign citizens with a long-term stay permit".
The organizations also appealed against a document issued by social security and pensions agency INPS "that has confirmed that limit".
The organizations say the measure has excluded families of foreigners who have been residing in Italy for a short period of time.
Discrimination based on nationality, disability
''This decision is not only a clear and plain discrimination based on nationality but also an indirect discrimination based on disability'', said in a statement Laura Abet, a lawyer for LEDHA's Anti-discrimination Center Franco Bomprezzi.
The effect of this measure, she said, "is to prevent all families with disabled children, who do not have a long-term stay permit, from enjoying a fundamental right -- access to an educational service."
Without adequate economic support, the statement said, ''families with disabled children, due to their well-known disadvantaged condition, also from an economic standpoint compared to families who don't have a child with a disability, would not be able to enroll their children in nursery school."
'No family excluded'
Limitations to apply for the bonus, stressed LEDHA, discriminate in particular foreign families who have been living in Italy for a short period of time and in particular those who have a child with a serious disability considered unable to attend nursery school.
The fact that such children don't attend nursery school ''often does not depend on choices made by their parents," LEDHA said, "but is due to the fact that the necessary adjustments are not made in organizing services."
The organizations also cited "strong opposition and prejudices by managing institutions."
The associations noted that one of the parents of disabled children is often forced to stop working to assist them, further impoverishing the family.
With the measure "INPS and the government have de facto excluded from the possibility of using this support the households that would most need it: foreign families who have been living in Italy for a short period of time, with disabled children," concluded Alessandro Manfredi, president of LEDHA.
"It is important that no foreign families with disabled children are excluded from this measure, regardless of the juridical situation of parents."