Few crimes are as heinous as femicide, the murder of a woman at the hands of her partner or family member. Now the government is preparing a new Security Decree which aims to introduce stricter rules against feminicide. Rules that strengthen prevention and whose technical examination is expected for this afternoon. But from the first advances published by Corriere della Sera, again there is little and once again we fall into the misunderstanding: that of thinking that harsher penalties will lead to concrete results. The truth is that, on the other hand, the idea of a crackdown is being fed to a distracted public. A political objective but one that will not serve to affect the phenomenon. Because the rules are there, what is missing above all are services and a culture of respect for women: strengthening of social services to make them more efficient and improve support for women and families in difficulty; childcare services; adequate training of the police force and the judiciary; dedicated departments; sufficient funds to guarantee an initial economic support.
Security decree: what it provides for to prevent feminicide
The aim of the provision, writes the Corriere della Sera, “is to strengthen the prevention activity to prevent people who have already been reported from committing acts of violence against women. The draft decree provides for the expansion of the cases in which the questore can issue a provision of warning, especially for stalkers. And there will be a rule that allows for the imposition, in dangerous situations, of a ban on staying in and approaching places frequented by the victim".
More severe penalties are also envisaged for those who have already been admonished and violate the provisions. Whoever is subjected to electronic control through the bracelet but tries to tamper with it risks prison. The police forces and health centers will have the obligation to inform the victim about the anti-violence centers located in the area and will have to arrange for her to be accommodated in one of the structures if a request of this type is presented. The compensation system also changes, providing for a provisional payment that becomes a form of early compensation, already after a first conviction sentence.
Femicide: Maria Amatuzzo, 29, the last woman murdered by her husband
Maria Amatuzzo, 29, was killed at home by her 63-year-old husband, found by the carabinieri with the knife still in his hand. She is the last woman killed this year, chronologically. Her crime took place on December 24 near Trapani: Maria had three children and her husband Ernesto Favara killed her with 13 stab wounds because she did not accept the separation. The first woman to inaugurate the sad series of femicides of 2022 - on average one every three days - was Guglielmina Pasetto, known as Delfina, 71, killed by her retired railway husband in Rovigo on 6 January.
From North to South, the Ministry of the Interior has recorded more than 2022 homicides since 300 January XNUMX, with 121 female victims, of which 99 killed in the family or otherwise emotional, 59 of which found death at the hands of their partner or ex. Numbers worsened compared to 2021, when there were 118 women victims of murder and 102 of them died in the family or emotional sphere, 69 killed by their partner or ex.
To try to deal with this real emergency, in 2017 the Senate established a commission of inquiry into feminicides and in 2019 the law on the Red Code was also approved which intends to speed up the procedures for protecting women victims of threats and violence, after who filed a complaint.
But the laws remain on paper and fail to affect the phenomenon, the gravity of which is there for all to see. Not even the day of reflection of the red shoes, November 25, set up to raise public awareness, seems to produce results.
Security decree and femicide: a new attempt, but it won't help
Femicide is an atrocious crime because it is a homicide, because in most cases it deprives children of a mother and a father, the very one who committed the murder, in one fell swoop; because it sweeps families away, leaving children, often minors, without points of reference. It is a very serious social scourge in the face of which the measures taken by the government led by Giorgia Meloni do not seem able to affect. In fact, tightening up the warning is useless if you are not able to answer these simple questions: who will protect my children if I report my partner who threatens me? Is there a safe place I can go with my children to protect them from being attacked? What financial help can I receive to meet expenses, at least for the first period?
It is not possible to give an adequate answer to these questions. The recovery - psychological, formative of the violent partner - is not even touched upon by the new Security Decree. Many of the feminicides concern situations where the alarm and the warning had already gone off. In vain, because then nothing had been done to follow the threatened woman, give her adequate protection and intervene on the persecutor not only with her alleged repression but by supporting her with adequate educational programmes. Or simply because the police and judiciary had underestimated the alarm raised by the woman in distress.
