D.i.Re - Women on the Net against violence sent to President Mattarella an open letter to ask him to guarantee the commitments undertaken by Italy regarding the implementation of the Istanbul Convention, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of its ratification.

D.i.Re brought to your attention the conclusions on the state of implementation of the recommendations addressed to Italy in February 2020 presented - on June XNUMXst - by the Committee of the Parties to the Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention).

"The hope is that with your authoritative voice as head of state, as well as president of the superior council of the judiciary, you will urge all subjects and institutional bodies to be more active and efficient in the fight against male violence against women, in the wake of the commitment made 10 years ago and following the indications that come from the monitoring mechanism of the Convention itself” declares the president of D.i.Re, Antonella Veltri. 

The points with respect to which the Italian Government is called to more effective action are various and important, taking up many of the observations presented by women's associations through the Shadow Report, coordinated by D.i.Re – Women on the Net against violence.

In particular, the Committee of the Parties asks the Government to:

1. design and implement comprehensive policies that address all forms of violence against women, in close consultation with women's rights organisations, which clearly identify the actions to be taken, the competent authorities to implement them and the related financial allocations; and at the same time, harmonize the implementation of these policies at regional/local level;

2. ensure that bodies responsible for the implementation and coordination of measures to combat violence against women (Department for Equal Opportunities) have a solid institutional basis and sufficient human and financial resources, while ensuring effective evaluation of policies;

3. strengthen the national and local institutional framework for cooperation with women's rights organisations when designing, monitoring, evaluating and implementing measures and policies to prevent and combat violence against women;

4. ensure adequate and timely funding of measures to prevent and combat violence against women at national and regional levels, provide long-term financial support to specialized services for women based on a comprehensive needs assessment, and increase transparency and accountability in the use of public funds;

5. take legislative or other measures to:

(a) effective civil remedies are available in cases where State authorities have failed to comply with their duties of care, as provided for in Article 29 of the Convention; 

b1) a risk assessment is carried out systematically by all competent authorities;

b2) introduce a system of ex post analysis of all cases of feminicide;

c) competent courts are required to take violence against women into account in determining custody and visitation rights; 

d) protection orders and precautionary measures are taken in a timely manner and applicable to all forms of violence against women; and that data is collected on the number of orders requested and the number of those granted; 

e) review the legislation on the prosecution of crimes relating to violence against women, recently amended by the Cartabia law. 

On these issues, Italy will be called to report by 2 June 2025. 

"We have written to President Mattarella to share our concern about the application of the Istanbul Convention in Italy, also following the recent actions of the Government regarding the prevention and fight against male violence against women." – declares the president of D.i.King Antonella Veltri “We keep reading statements when a woman is killed and not seeing the implementation of what the Convention provides – continues Veltri. “10 years after its ratification in Italy, we believe the time has finally come for truly useful interventions. The 40 years of experience of the anti-violence centers in our network could be a good starting point.” – concludes the president.