Coinciding with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Italian Parliament this Tuesday approved a law that introduces the crime of femicide into the penal code and punishes it with life imprisonment. The project, promoted by the far-right government led by Giorgia Meloni (Brothers of Italy), had received the approval of the Senate and on Tuesday was approved by a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, so it is now firm law and will come into force after publication in the Official Gazette of the Italian State.
Specifically, the new law provides that anyone who kills a woman “as an act of hatred, discrimination, abuse of power, control over her, to limit her freedom or in relation to her refusal to establish or maintain an emotional relationship”, risks life imprisonment in the most serious cases. In cases where some mitigating circumstances can be recognised, the penalties range from 15 to 24 years of imprisonment.
Until now, Italian legislation provided for a specific aggravating circumstance for murders that can fall within the definition of femicide, i.e. the intentional murder of a woman for being a woman – which in Spain the law has foreseen for murders due to gender violence since 2004 – but it was not considered a crime in itself, as it will be from now on.
Furthermore, the law provides aggravating circumstances and more severe penalties for crimes of mistreatment of women, harassment or dissemination of intimate images without consent as revenge (known as revenge porn). The law responds to a series of cases of gender violence and murders of women at the hands of their partners or ex-partners, many of whom are very young, which have changed the social conscience in the transalpine country.
Last year the National Institute of Statistics (Istat) recorded a femicide every three days. There have been recent cases that have marked a before and after in Italy and have transformed the public and political debate. A series of murders of women have sparked a social protest that has accelerated calls for concrete legal reforms. One of the cases is that of Giulia Cecchettin, a 23-year-old university student brutally killed in 2023 by her 23-year-old ex-boyfriend – sentenced to life imprisonment last year – when she was about to graduate.
His death served as a catalyst to increase social pressure on the authorities and political parties. The widespread indignation of public opinion has allowed the debate on gender violence and its causes in the country’s patriarchal culture to stop being almost marginal and become a central issue.
“An important signal of political cohesion”
For Meloni, the new law approved by a large majority represents “an important signal of political cohesion against the barbarity of violence against women”. “We have doubled funding for anti-violence centers and shelters, promoted an emergency toll-free number and carried out innovative education and awareness-raising activities”, underlined the prime minister. And he added: “It is concrete progress, but we will not stop here. We must continue to do much more every day.”
Although the centre-left opposition supported the law in Parliament, it criticized that the government’s approach only addresses the criminal aspect of the problem, failing to address underlying causes such as economic and cultural factors. In the transalpine country, among other things, the debate on the introduction of sexual and emotional education in school classrooms as a tool to prevent gender violence has intensified.
For now, the government is considering banning this type of education for primary school students and plans to require explicit parental consent for any lessons that raise these issues in secondary schools. The conservative coalition believes that this protects minors from what they call “ideological activism”, while the opposition defines this approach as “medieval”.
“Italy is one of seven countries in Europe where sexual and relationship education is not yet compulsory in schools, and we ask that it be compulsory in all school years,” protested the secretary of the Democratic Party, Elly Schlein. And he added: “Repression is not enough without prevention, which can only start in schools.”
The law, just approved, was announced on 8 March, International Women’s Day, and immediately sparked a debate between jurists, magistrates, lawyers, feminist movements and associations involved in combating sexist violence against women.
The issue is complex. The most critical sectors put forward two main arguments: they believe that the new rule was unnecessary and they doubt its effectiveness. Some experts warn that classifying femicide as a stand-alone crime does not guarantee a real reduction in these crimes. And they underline that there is a risk that the law will remain a symbolic gesture and that it is destined to be resolved exclusively through criminal law – focused on sanctions – a problem that has deep cultural and social roots. Therefore, they require prevention policies that take into account the set of social, political, public and institutional practices that justify or favor sexist violence against women.
Those who support the law, however, argue that the crime of femicide will allow public bodies to act with greater precision and effectiveness. They also believe that the measure will help make the structural dimension of gender violence visible and will allow for promoting social, cultural and institutional changes to overcome the numerous factors that still perpetuate violence against women.
At the same time, another legislative reform to introduce the concept of consent in cases of sexual violence is being discussed in Italy and there is broad consensus on the issue. A few days ago Meloni and Schlein reached an agreement to insert this principle into the penal code. This is an unusual pact between opposing political forces in Italy.
