A court in the northern Italian city of Parma on Friday sentenced Chiara Petrolini, a 22-year-old university student, to 24 years and three months in prison for the premeditated murder of her second newborn son and for concealing the bodies of both children she secretly buried in the family garden. The Corte d’Assise acquitted her of the killing of the first infant, born in May 2023, finding the charge unproven, yet imposed provisional damages of €100,000 for the former boyfriend and his parents. Petrolini, who worked locally as a babysitter, sat impassively as the verdict was read, offering no visible reaction, before returning to the villa in Vignale di Traversetolo where she remains under house arrest with an electronic bracelet.

Viewed from Rome, the case has gripped the country not only for its grim particulars but for the unsettling figure at its centre: a seemingly ordinary young woman from a hamlet of 600 souls in the hills outside Parma. The second baby’s remains were discovered in August 2024 by the family dog, mere days after a concealed birth. Investigators say Petrolini had attended a baby shower and a seaside holiday while pregnant, giving no outward sign of distress. Prosecutors had sought a 26-year term; her defence insisted the infants were stillborn. The court’s split decision, coupled with an order for a full psychiatric evaluation, suggests the judges grappled with the line between calculated homicide and a profound psychological rupture.

Across the Mediterranean, a court in Tangier has delivered its own reckoning over a child’s death. The criminal chamber near the Court of Appeal sentenced two women to two years’ imprisonment each for their role in running an unlicensed crèche where a child was exposed to life-threatening danger and later died. The court found the managers guilty of abandoning the child in an isolated spot, failing to report the circumstances, and operating the facility without authorisation or adequate safety measures. The sentence, handed down in late April, marks the latest instance of Moroccan authorities stiffening penalties for informal childcare providers, a sector that has expanded rapidly as more women enter the workforce.

Analysts in Paris note that the Italian and Moroccan rulings, though separated by legal tradition and geography, reflect a shared shift in societal expectations. In Italy, the psychiatric review of Petrolini—ordered even after conviction—could eventually reshape the public understanding of the tragedy, rekindling a long-standing debate on infanticide and maternal mental health that has often divided legal and medical experts. The acquittal for the first baby’s death leaves room for an appeal from either side, and the psychological assessment may prove decisive in any retrial. In Morocco, the two-year term is less severe than the charges permitted, but it underscores a deliberate push to formalise early-years care; the government has signalled that tolerance for unregistered crèches is finished.

Seen from Brussels, where child-welfare policy increasingly frames early childhood as a rights-based domain, both cases highlight the tension between private anguish and state responsibility. The Parma verdict is unlikely to be the last word, and the Tangier sentence sets a precedent that will be closely watched across the Mahgreb. For now, two courtrooms have delivered judgments that, however imperfect, insist on a fundamental principle: the lives of the very young are not invisible to the law.