Tens of thousands protest in Italy to condemn violence against women

Thousands of people have taken part in protests across Italy, calling for an end to violence against women after the violent murder of a young student earlier this month.

Large crowds gathered in the capital Rome, Milan and Naples on Saturday to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Demonstrators wearing purple headscarves chanted “we want to live, Patriarchy is enough” in protest against the widespread violence and killing of women in their country.

Protesters also chanted “end violence against women” and “do not be silent in the face of this violence,” demanding stricter laws to stand against femicide (murder of a woman because of her gender) and physical and sexual violence against women in Italy.

In a statement marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Italy's president, Sergio Mattarella, said “Dramatic news stories have shaken the country's conscience.”

“A human society that aspires to be civilized cannot accept, cannot endure, this string of attacks on women and murders,” he said, adding that violence against women was a failure of society.

Pope Francis in a post on X (formerly twitter) on Saturday called for action to prevent gender-based violence and said, “Violence against women is a poisonous weed that plagues our society and must be pulled up from its roots.”

Violence against women is a poisonous weed that plagues our society and must be pulled up from its roots. These roots grow in the soil of prejudice and of injustice; they must be countered with educational action that places the person, with his or her dignity, at the centre.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) November 25, 2023

European Parliament President, Roberta Metsola, also speaking on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women said, “We need proper protection frameworks. We need more convictions of those who prey on females. And we need to end the remaining institutional blindness to this epidemic upon women. There are no more excuses. It is already too late.”

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Anger and outrage have erupted across Italy after a university student was killed by her ex-boyfriend, casting a spotlight on violence against women in a country where one woman on average is killed every three days.

Giulia Cecchettin, a 22-year-old university student who had been due to graduate from the University of Padua last week was killed on 11 November and her body was found days before her graduation ceremony in a ditch near a lake north of Venice.

Her former boyfriend and alleged murderer on Saturday was extradited from Germany where he had fled, according to a report by Italian news agency Ansa.

In the year to November 12, there have been 102 murder cases with female victims in Italy, 82 of them by family members or current or former partners, according to the interior ministry.

Moreover, a report, published in 2021 by the European Institute for Gender Equality and based on 2018 data, placed Italy ninth out of 15 EU countries for the number of murders of women by partners or former partners and 10th for femicides committed by relatives.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in a report recently announced that one in three women over the age of 15 in the European Union is a victim of physical and sexual violence. Sociologists have also considered violence and physical and sexual abuse and femicide as silent epidemics in Europe.

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