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FEMICIDE

Salvini: ‘Code red’ needed for reports of violence against women

Reports of stalking and attacks must be treated as a priority, says interior minister, as figures show Italy has one femicide every two days.

Published: 19 November 2018 14:38 CET
Salvini: ‘Code red’ needed for reports of violence against women
Women carry a banner with the slogan 'No to violence against women'. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP

Legislative reform is needed to tackle violence against women in Italy, Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said today, announcing that he was proposing the introduction of a new warning system under which reports of stalking and violence on women would be given “code red” priority status.

“At the earliest cabinet meeting possible I will propose the introduction of a code red for the [investigation of] allegations of stalking and violence against women, so that these reports don’t end up at the bottom of the pile in the files of magistrates,” Salvini said.

There have been shockingly high numbers of reported attacks on women including femicides – cases in which women are murdered, usually by their current or former partners – in Italy in recent years.

READ ALSO: ANALYSIS: 'Violence against women conditions every aspect of our lives'

“If there are detailed, documented and in-depth reports, they have the highest priority, because we’ve counted too many women wounded, attacked with acid and even killed,” said Salvini.

“Just as there is the code red in the emergency room, there must be a signal on cases of domestic violence and violence against women to intervene before it is too late,” explained the minister, confirming that this “will be ond of the forthcoming initiatives that the government and parliament will bring forward.”

A poster from the 'this is not love' campaign against domestic violence. Image: Italian State Police

His words come days after figures released by Italian police showed there was one femicide every two days in Italy between 2006 and 2016, a total of 1,740 and an average of 174 a year.

In 2017 some 77% of all murdered women were killed by their partners or exes; 112 out of a total of 145.One in three women between the ages of 16 and 70 has experienced physical or sexual abuse according to the figures, released by Italian police as part of a campaign against domestic violence called questo non e amore or ‘this is not love.’

The Italian media is full of reports of attacks on women and murders committed by “jealous” husbands or boyfriends.

The most recent reports from the past week include a man in Caserta who shot his wife and sister-in-law, injured his in-laws and then took his own life after his wife told him she wanted a divorce, and a man who admitted suffocating his wife after she told him she had met someone else.

Campaigners say attitudes must change in Italy, where cases of violent crimes committed against women by their partners or ex-partners are often portrayed in the media as tragic stories of love gone sour.

Almost 3.5 million women in Italy have been victims of stalking, according to data from national statistics agency Istat, but only 22 percent of those report the act or seek help.

Around one in three Italian women suffer abuse at some point in their life.

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For members

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Does Austria have a problem with violence against women? 

Austria is the only EU country where more women have been killed than men in 2021. Is this a statistical anomaly or does it speak to a deeper problem in Austrian society?

Published: 21 May 2021 17:02 CEST
Updated: 22 May 2021 09:59 CEST
Photo by Sydney Sims on Unsplash
Photo by Sydney Sims on Unsplash

In early May, a 50-year-old woman and her 76-year old mother were shot and killed in the Salzburg Flachgau region.

Just days before, a woman was killed in Vienna.

This led to demonstrations against ‘femicide’ (the murder of women) in the capital and prompted the Minister of Social Affairs Wolfgang Mückstein to says, as the father of two daughters, he was “sad and angry” about the deaths.

More women than men killed in Austria

So far this year 11 women have been murdered in Austria, making it the only EU country in which more women were killed than men. 

While across the European Union 65 percent of those killed are male, more women than men were killed in Austria in 2021 – as well as 2015 and 2016.

READ MORE: Outrage in Austria over ninth woman is murdered in 2021

This has led some to ask whether there is a problem with violence against women culturally embedded in Austrian society. 

Little consensus

Despite widespread political and academic discussion on the topic, there is no consensus on why murders of women are so prevalent in Austria. 

Austrian writer Gerhard Ruiss, who created the initiative ‘Femicide – It’s All About Us’, told Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung that violence protection projects and women’s shelters are chronically underfunded in Austria. 

Ruiss also indicated that an assessment of femicides often shows major police failings, particularly as the offenders often have long histories of violence and are “known to the authorities”. 

However, a representative of the Archdiocese of Vienna claimed in a Die Presse newspaper comment piece that Austria did not have an unusual level of femicide in a European comparison, saying the country was “only remarkable” because it recorded very few murders of men in an international comparison.

Home ‘most dangerous’ place

Speaking to The Local, Teresa Ulleram of domestic violence charity Wiener Interventionsstelle gegen Gewalt in der Familie (Vienna Intervention Centre against Violence in the Family), agreed this could be the reason women seemed to be statistically more likely to be murdered than men.

“Most murders here do not happen on the streets or in public spaces, but actually at home, ” she said. “Domestic or family violence is a phenomenon that is primarily directed against women and children.”

Ulleram said in the vast majority of cases of femicide, the perpetrators are male, and are even often close relatives.

Not necessarily related to immigration

Despite claims to the contrary by some political parties, the statistics show the increase in murders is not necessarily related to immigration.

In 2020, the suspects in all femicides were Austrians in 21 out of 26 cases. In the year before, 22 of the 43 suspects were Austrians, Der Standard reports. 

Maria Rösslhumer, the Head of the Association of Autonomous Austrian Women’s Shelters, told Zett magazine that the problem was too widespread in Austrian society to be blamed on immigrants. 

“Politicians try to play down violence against women by increasingly labelling it as an “imported problem” that came to Austria through migration. But that’s not true,” she said.

“There is a problem in Austria with violence against women that cannot be reduced to migrants. Every fifth woman experiences physical or sexual violence in her life.”

Do Austria’s gun laws need reform?

The Local has reported previously on Austria’s relatively relaxed laws on gun ownership. 

In May, Austrian gun manufacturer Glock prompted outrage with an advert in which a gun was shown in a Mother’s Day advert. 

EXPLAINED: Why is gun ownership in Austria on the rise?

However, Ulleram was not convinced stricter gun laws would make the problem disappear. She said more gun control was “important” but perpetrators also used weapons such as knives or even their own hands to commit murders. 

Although Austria signed the Istanbul Convention (an international treaty creating binding legal norms against violence against women and domestic violence) in 2011 and ratified it in 2013, not all the conventions recommendations and measures have been implemented yet in Austria, Ulleram said. 

She called for a variety of measures to prevent femicides – such as more budgeting for victim protection institutions, and greater funding for the police and justice. 

‘Very good laws’

One positive aspect is women in Austria are protected by “very good laws,” Ulleram said women were particularly vulnerable just before or after a separation.

In Austria the Protection Against Violence Act was passed in 1997, and since then, women no longer have to automatically leave their homes and go to a women’s shelter in the case of violence in the home. Instead perpetrators can be made to leave by the police. 

Last week, a government round table took place at which a package of measures against violence against women and to strengthen violence prevention was decided.

More money will be made available for violence protection institutions and for work with perpetrators such as men’s counselling.

Violence against women can be attributed to ‘many causes’

However, these more steps will not totally address the most fundamental root cause of violence identified by domestic violence charities  – the patriarchy.

Ulleram said that violence against women can be attributed to many causes, and in Austria was “deeply” embedded in patriarchal and historically developed social structures. 

One telling statistic is that Austria is still one of the EU countries with the largest gender pay gap between women and men.

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