It didn’t take much for ministers Roccella and Nordio to make a fuss and set off a media storm. Speaking at the International Conference Against Femicide at the House of Representatives, the Minister for Families said that there was no correlation between reducing the number of femicides and sexual-affective education. While the Keeper of the Seals questions “man’s ancient lies” and speaks of “sedimentation in the human mentality that is difficult to remove”.
In short, they participate in conferences by listening and proposing data. But every word they say ends on the green field. And the opposition attacked both ministers, accusing them of everything. Elisabetta Piccolotti (Avs) even evoked behind the scenes a ghost deal between the majority parties to pass the concept that “femicide would be reduced if women agreed to return to their place”. His party colleague Angelo Bonelli joked with the slogan: “Welcome to the Middle Ages”. Then gets lost in a rather risky scenario where he finds a correlation between the ministers’ declaration of the phenomenon of feminicide, Masonic lodges and the separation of the careers of judges. Even Grillina’s deputy, Chiara Appendino, attacked the two ministers without criticism. “These are words that do not describe violence: they provide a huge cultural alibi. It is obscurantism and obscurantism that produces violence.” Violence – as Roberta Mori, national spokesperson for the Democratic Women’s Conference, put it – “is not an unavoidable fate but the failure of an entire society”. However, going by the ministers’ reasoning, the controversy appears to have simply sparked a classic storm in a teacup. Seal Keeper, for example, does not condone the human genetic code and its “resistance to equality.” On the contrary. “It is important – he said – to intervene against laws and oppression, and above all education”. In his remarks, Minister Nordio then reminded us that the law is in the process of being ratified which stipulates that without explicit consent violence will occur. With this regulation, the Minister of Finance himself underlined, “listening to the victim will be an obligation of the investigation”.
And Roccella? The Minister of Family Affairs explained that there is no relationship between the decline in feminicide cases and sexual education. And this brings objective data such as that obtained from Sweden where sexual education has long been a main pillar in school education, but the murder rate of women is higher than in Sweden.
“Does the left want to stop them or just create controversy?” asked Roccella, who later recalled how the UN had “defined Italy’s new law on femicide as a model”. And he commented bitterly: “Sometimes a sense of exasperation seems to arise among the left at the sight of this government being among the sharpest in its actions against violence.”
