Italy Needs to Take On Out-of-Control Male Rage
A woman is killed every three days in Italy by her partner or ex-partner.
Andrea Giambruno, a year ago, before his partner, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, kicked him out over indiscretions with a co-worker.
Photographer: Bloomberg/BloombergOctober 25th marked a grim milestone in Italy: the year’s 100th killing of a woman. Two days later, Annalisa D’Auria, a teaching assistant in Turin, became number 101. Her husband Agostino Annunziata, having seen D’Auria chatting with another man the day before, sought first to strangle her and then stabbed her in the throat in front of their three-year old daughter. He then killed himself.
A woman is killed every three days in Italy, most often in a family context, according to the Interior Ministry. More than 80 of these deaths are defined as femicide, that is when the perpetrator is the victim’s partner, ex-partner or is a close family member of a friend. Comparable statistics are hard to come by mainly due to under-reporting, according to Eurostat, but available data suggests Italy is among the worst countries for femicides in the European Union. Where Italy further fails women is the pervasive view that those abused were somehow to blame, according to a study by Istat, the national statistics office.