Perugia. Dangerous proposal from the city council that insults victims and disavows violence

“The agenda presented in the city council in Perugia is dangerous, derogatory towards women who suffer violence, and arrogant towards those who for decades have accompanied women on paths of escape from violence. A shameful proposal, which denies violence in intimate relationships to bring it back to marital conflict, which is constantly happening in civil and juvenile courts and which leads to secondary victimization of women, and of their sons and daughters, when they try to separate from the abusers ”.

Antonella Veltri, President of D.i.Re announces the support of the national network of anti-violence centers D.i.Re to the open letter 'Violence does not go on vacation and is not a gadget that various associations of women and Umbrian anti-violence centers have addressed today to the Mayor of Perugia Andrea Romizi and the City Council, to ask for the withdrawal ofAgenda titled 'Until Violence Do Us Part'.

The agenda approved on 5 October by the IV Council Commission - Culture, commits the municipal administration to organize training courses in schools for "to impose a serious reflection on the motivation that initially also fascinates some of the potential future victims"- thus adopting the thesis that the violence that women and girls suffer is their fault and entrusting this training exclusively to the police - and then proposes pre-wedding courses and holidays in apartments in other municipalities to "switch off" when you are already "in the tunnel of fear", made more attractive by "gadgets provided by the project sponsors".

" male violence against women is rooted in patriarchal culture that permeates our country, and of which this Agenda is evidently a reflection ”, concludes President Veltri. “Serious work to prevent violence must address the unbalanced power relations between the sexes, the stereotypical gender roles and the sexist prejudices that underlie male control over women and violence. And it must rely on anti-violence centers that have been accompanying women in the area for over 30 years on paths to escape from violence ".