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The Italian authorities should stop their practice of routinely detaining minors, especially those seeking asylum and unaccompanied by a family member, Amnesty International said in a recent report. In the report, "Italy: Invisible children - The human rights of migrant and asylum-seeking minors detained upon arrival at the maritime border in Italy," the organization calls on the authorities to reconsider the measures it is now applying, which appear to fall short of human rights standards. "Children are the first victims of the failings of Italy's asylum and immigration policies," said Nicola Duckworth, Europe and Central Asia Programme Director at Amnesty International. "Made invisible by the lack of statistics and the general lack of transparency of the centres, they are forced to live sometimes for prolonged periods of time in unhygienic and unsuitable conditions without an opportunity to challenge the lawfulness of their detention." During the past five years, approximately 80,000 migrants and asylum-seekers have reached Italy by sea after a hazardous journey, often onboard small, unseaworthy boats. Among them have been hundreds of children, generally very young, including infants, and some of them unaccompanied. They have come from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Turkey and Iraq as well as from other countries in the Middle East and North Africa. In many cases, they have been detained upon arrival along with adults, though there is no domestic law that justifies this routine practice. The right of detained minors to be kept separate from adults who are not members of the same family has in many cases not been respected. They, along with children, some less than five years old, have had to endure intense heat in summer and cold and humidity in winter living in mobile houses in detention centres. Amnesty International has received more than 890 allegations and other information regarding the presence of minors in most detention centres in Italy in recent years. The organization has a detailed knowledge of 28 unaccompanied minors who have been detained at some point between January 2002 and August 2005. Almost all were asylum-seekers from sub-Saharan African countries in which the human rights situation is very precarious.