The Government of Italy has published a report detailing that 104 women have been killed by gender violence so far in 2022, of which 88 have taken place in the affective or family environment and 52 have been victims of their partner or ex-partner.
On the occasion of the Day against Gender Violence, the report ‘Prejudice and violence against women’ released by the Italian Ministry of the Interior shows that gender violence has increased across the board compared to last year.
Although the data wields that in 2021 the victims at this time of the year had been 109 women, it has been a decrease hardly felt, especially after the week from 14 to 20 November this year there have been 10 murders of women in the transalpine country.
Likewise, the Interior Ministry report has reported that 4,416 sexual violences have been recorded in 2022 (nine percent more than in 2021), with more than 92 percent of the victims being women.
There has also been a 12 percent increase in the number of violations of family expulsion orders and restraining orders. As for online harassment, 194 complaints from women were recorded compared to 151 in 2020.
Gender violence has been described as a «national drama» by the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, who has advocated, among other issues, to facilitate the adoption of new protocols and promote «best practices» in the courts, so that the judicial system is more effective when it comes to acting.
Meloni, who heads a right-wing tripartite coalition, has established «prevention, protection and certainty of punishment» as pillars to combat male violence, against which she has repeatedly spoken out in a speech that contrasts with that of other European partners.
«This Government is in the front line to combat violence against women and the terrible scourge of femicide. We owe it to the many victims, often without justice, and to all those who are still today forced to suffer this barbarity,» she has claimed on her Facebook account.
In the opposition, the former president of the Senate and member of the Democratic Party, Laura Boldrini, has lamented the death of the 104 women since the beginning of the year.
«A feminicide every three days. Murdered by men who should love them: violence disguised as love. This is why we need a cultural revolution that erases the patriarchal mentality and affirms respect for women,» asserted Boldrini.
The Democratic Party launched last 23rd a campaign on social networks calling for an end to online violence with the help of 21 women actresses, writers and journalists who have been victims of online harassment.
