Insaf Dimassi arrived in Italy from her native Tunisia in 1997 at the age of only nine months, reuniting with her migrant worker father.
She thrived in the Italian education system — graduating from a demanding scientific high school — and was active in student politics, while her father worked in agriculture then construction.
Some two decades after his initial arrival, Dimassi’s father managed to fulfil the strict criteria — and navigate the bureaucratic labyrinth — to acquire Italian citizenship, also granted to his two younger, Italian-born daughters. But Dimassi turned 18 just 20 days before their formal oath-taking ceremony and so was barred from naturalising with them.