Since 2014, Bambinisenzasbarre has organised La partita con papà—a football match played by children and their imprisoned fathers held annually in 70 detention centres across Italy. Organised in collaboration with Italy’s National Penitentiary Administration, the event unites around 2,900 children and 1,700 fathers, bringing families together in an attempt to humanise the experience of imprisonment both for child and father, to create positive memories and to provide a space for pleasure in the midst of an otherwise difficult situation.
The matches begin from a simple philosophical starting point: ‘The children are all the same, even the hundred thousand children of detained parents [in Italy]. They shouldn’t be excluded from games; there is a game to play, even in prison with dad’. Emphasising the importance of social inclusion and equal opportunities for children often stigmatised because of their parent’s imprisonment, La partita con papà has come to be a catalyst for advocacy and institutional engagement, bringing the effects of parental imprisonment to the attention of the media and citizens more broadly.