Assisted Voluntary Return with Reintegration Promoted By Italy: The Role of Civil Society Organizations

EU Countries implement policies for forced return (FR) of Third Countries Nationals who are not entitled to stay legally inside their borders. Besides FR, they also run Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) programs which are often supported by reintegration initiatives in the countries of origin of returnees. On this topic, European Commission state that AVR should be preferred over FR. AVR policies implemented by EU Countries are nonetheless rather heterogeneous, and so are the results they got. Given this premise, the contribution focuses on the AVR programs with reintegration promoted by Italy, with particular attention to the role played by civil society organizations. Based also on a comparison with the policies implemented in this regard by some other European countries, the aim is to highlight the current limitations of the Italian AVR system as well as best practices observed internationally.