The National Anti-violence Network expresses concern about the approval of a text which - presented in a non-amendable form - does not consider the necessary observations of those who have been working alongside women for over 30 years to combat male violence. 

For this reason, a communication was sent yesterday to the heads of the Equal Opportunities Department, hoping that the dangerous critical issues reported would be heard.

The concern of the Anti-violence Network concerns, above all, the minimum requirements of the Centers for Male Authors of Violence, which will confer legitimacy of action to realities that in the national territory still operate in a limited way and whose work does not yet exist research and structural data relating to their effectiveness. The greatest critical issue on which the anti-violence centers have not been heard concerns the direct contact of the CUAV with women victims of violence, in an attempt that ends - in fact - to implement the mediation prohibited by the Istanbul Convention.

“We would be doing harm to the women we welcome - over 20 a year - if we endorsed without consulting and sharing a text that does not make it possible, among other things, to take uniform action throughout the national territory. The anti-violence centers implement a methodology that supports women in their paths of freedom. Their safety could be jeopardized by a measure that has not listened to those who have skills and experience. " says Antonella Veltri, President of D.i.Re - Women on the Net against violence.

Furthermore, this working method implemented by the DPO does not consider the recommendations that the GREVIO Committee sent to the Italian State, already over two years ago: the action of the anti-violence centers, their methodology and their policy must be respected. The revision of the minimum requirements of the Anti-violence Centers has, on the contrary, had times and methods that do not allow concerted interventions and do not allow the re-elaboration of a thought brought into reality.

“We think - continues Veltri - that this should not be the method for building regulatory instruments that affect work in the territories, but even more so in the lives of women. Anti-violence Centers must be heard on programs for perpetrators. We risk the spread of centers for the abusers without adequate training and knowledge of the phenomenon. Who benefits from all this? We therefore ask to suspend the approval of the Agreement which establishes the identification of minimum requirements of the Centers for Male Authors of Violence and that a discussion and reflection table be opened to build a document that can truly be shared and reflects what is there. 'common goal of all and all: not to create harm to women ”concludes the President.