Country facts
- Population: 59 million
- Almost 700,000 asylum seekers arrived in Italy since 2015
- Rank in Human Development Index: 30 of 191
IRC response
- Started work in Italy: November 2017
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The IRC in Italy provides essential safety, empowerment, education, livelihood and health services to migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Our programs operate across the country, including in Trieste, Milan, Rome, Turin and various locations in Sicily and Calabria, with a strong focus on supporting the most vulnerable populations, such as women and children.
The IRC's work in Italy:
Our work in Italy addresses the needs of people seeking protection by offering direct support, collaborating with local organizations, and working alongside national authorities and institutions to enhance the asylum system and improve humanitarian conditions.
The IRC's areas of focus in Italy include:
Women and girls arriving in Italy face significant risks and challenges, including gender-based violence, trafficking, sexual exploitation, discrimination based on origin and legal status, poor living conditions in reception centers, social isolation and limited access to resources and employment.
Since 2019, the IRC has partnered with local organizations to establish Women and Girls Safe Spaces (WGSS) in Rome, Palermo, Milan, Turin and Trieste. These safe spaces use an evidence-based approach where migrant women and girls can participate in creative activities, access psychological and case management services, build social networks, and empower themselves in a secure environment for both them and their children.
The IRC also builds the capacity of local actors to support clients using trauma-informed, transcultural approaches. With teams of caseworkers and cultural mediators, we conduct vulnerability assessments and offer holistic case management to ensure clients' safety and facilitate their integration.
Since January 2023, the IRC has led a mental health and psychosocial support project for women and children fleeing Ukraine, housed in emergency reception hotels in Rome.
Rates of human trafficking are high in Italy and primarily impact vulnerable groups, such as women and unaccompanied children.
Since 2021, IRC has been working with several partners in Italy and across Europe to identify victims, and potential victims, of trafficking survivors and assist survivors through trauma-informed care and ‘do no harm’ practices.
Safe Hut
Safe Hut is an EU-funded project focused on empowering and supporting the social and labor integration of third-country national women and girls exposed to trafficking, with a special focus on those affected by the Ukraine crisis. The project involves 7 partners from 6 EU countries—Italy, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria—many of which have been central to Ukrainian migration.
DIRECT
Under the EU-funded, 2-year project, DIRECT, the IRC continues to provide direct support to unaccompanied children and women who are survivors or at risk of trafficking. The project also enhances the skills of migrant-led organizations and first responders in identifying and assisting survivors, while strengthening efforts to prevent human trafficking through collaborative work with these organizations.
Education is a fundamental right and key to a bright future, yet displaced children often face difficulty accessing and integrating into schools. The IRC partners with local education systems to enhance educators’ capacity to create environments that foster children's well-being and holistic development in safe, welcoming and child-friendly settings. A special focus is given to children who have experienced, or are at risk of, adverse childhood experiences, particularly migrant and refugee children.
The IRC’s Holistic Educational Approach equips educators with tools and strategies to foster cognitive and social-emotional growth, using a transcultural perspective to meet the needs of diverse children.
Since 2021, the IRC has trained over 900 educators, primary school teachers and school managers in partnership with the Municipality of Milan.
Theory of Change
Through the EU-funded Theory of Change project, the IRC collaborates with partners in Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Sweden to support educators, adolescents (ages 11-19) and migrant families in overcoming challenges related to education and community integration. The project equips education professionals with tools and resources to promote language learning and inclusion through a holistic approach and inclusive teaching methods in both formal and non-formal settings.
Economic empowerment
Economic empowerment is key to integration, helping individuals rebuild their lives and thrive in new communities. Since 2020, IRC Italy has worked with refugees, migrants and vulnerable populations to overcome barriers to unfamiliar job markets while ensuring that local communities recognize the value newcomers bring to the economy. We focus on disadvantaged groups, including unaccompanied children and women, and support them in achieving self-sufficiency and long-term economic mobility.
We deliver economic assistance through one-to-one support, social-emotional support, as well as basic and advanced digital skills for labor inclusion.
We provide economic assistance through one-on-one support, social-emotional guidance and digital skills training for job inclusion. Leveraging our global expertise, we assist municipal job centers and public employment services to improve access to labor market opportunities. This includes capacity-building, cultural and language competency training, trauma-informed service training and outreach initiatives targeting both clients and employers.
Refugee.info
Access to information is critical for displaced communities to make informed decisions and stay safe. Since 2018, IRC’s digital information service Refugee.Info (RI), part of Signpost, has provided refugees and migrants with multilingual, accessible, actionable and accurate information nationwide.
Through instant messaging apps, social media, a website and a peer-to-peer approach, we address clients’ information needs concerning their rights, documents, safety, support services and integration into new communities.
The service is currently available in English, French, Dari/Farsi, Pashto, Arabic and Ukrainian.
Trieste
Since 2021, the IRC has been working in Trieste to support asylum seekers and people on the move arriving from the Balkans.
We provide non-food items, legal orientation and facilitate access to crucial services such as food, medical care, overnight shelter and a legal helpdesk. The IRC also facilitates access to the asylum procedure and reception.
In Trieste, the IRC has been monitoring the information and protection needs of refugees and people in transit and works to improve protection programming and advocate for their rights with local and national institutions. The IRC has also helped establish a coordination mechanism allowing local and national NGOs to optimize resource use, create common operational procedures, monitor trends and respond effectively.
Southern Italy
Under the technical coordination and operational supervision of UNHCR, IRC Italy provides cross-sectoral protection services in selected key disembarkation points and transit areas through 4 roving teams to identify, advise and refer persons with specific needs to available services in the territory.
Protection monitoring
IRC Italy produces quarterly protection monitoring reports, underscoring our commitment to strengthening our protection activities. These reports regularly assess the protection situation of those we assist, capturing client profiles, vulnerabilities, protection risks across Italy. They also include significant migration-related updates nationwide, insights on clients using IRC's digital information service, Refugee.Info, and individuals arriving via the Balkan route.
For more reports, visit our IRC Italy reports page.
Safe pathways
GROWTH is an EU-funded project coordinated by Consorzio Communitas, aimed at expanding community sponsorship schemes in Italy, Ireland, Germany and across European Union Member States. The project will develop evidence-based strategies for recruiting and retaining sponsors to increase both their number and diversity. It will implement tailored communication campaigns, explore innovations such as alternative housing solutions and support the scaling of Community Sponsorship Programs. The IRC is responsible for quality monitoring and evaluation and supporting the implementation of activities in Italy.
IRC Italy is actively working to ensure that asylum seekers and refugees’ rights are respected and upheld. We monitor the obstacles that individuals seeking international protection face in formalizing their application and facilitate access to the asylum procedure and reception.
The IRC works with institutional representatives at both local and national levels to strengthen the reception and integration system for asylum seekers and refugees. We participate in joint advocacy initiatives through national and local networks, advocating on issues including changes to national protection laws, externalization policies and immigration detention. The IRC is also part of the National Coordination Platform on Health and Migration (GrIS), the Integrated Reception Network (Tavolo RAI) in Rome and the UNHCR-led working group in Milan.
INNOVATE
INNOVATE is an EU-funded project coordinated by the European University Institute, aimed at promoting policy-making based on facts and evidence rather than on beliefs and ideologies. Within INNOVATE, the IRC advocates for the rights of migrant children in Greece, Italy and Serbia, using research and the participation of those most affected by migration policies.
ParticipACTION
ParticipACTION is an EU-funded project coordinated by IRC Italy, aimed at increasing youth involvement in decision-making. Over two years, the project will create transnational partnerships and engage young people (ages 16–23) through research, roundtables, workshops, conferences, training, advocacy and debates. Focused on young migrants, particularly women and girls, in Italy, France, Lithuania and Cyprus, the project seeks to promote mutual understanding of shared experiences and barriers to democratic participation, fostering solidarity.
