"The word femicide it never or almost never appears in the media account of the killing of Chiara Ugolini, the details of which are emerging in these hours. Rather, she insists on the physical appearance of the victim, emphasizing her beauty, being a girl with social projects and commitments, having planned the wedding even though she was currently living with her boyfriend ", she says. Antonella Veltri, President of D.i.Re.
"'Beautiful and impossible', reports a well-known Italian newspaper in reconstructing the girl's last afternoon even though there is no direct evidence of her movements, voyeuristically insisting on the top worn on the bra after a shower", Veltri notes, underlining how it is "of an rape culture cliché, which attributes the cause of the violence to the choice of provocative clothing ".
In addition, Veltri points out, "the judgments expressed by the journalist with respect to the murderer, described as 'a kind of monkey' and the citation of the usual 'raptus' cancel the premeditation of the crime, effectively removing the responsibility of the murderer".
"The murdered girl is thus victimized again, on the pages of the newspapers, fueling stereotypes and prejudices that we then see reproduced in the courtrooms, and which end up fueling the culture of possession and subordination of women that is the basis of male violence against women ”, says Veltri.
"There is a need for a real change of course also in communication, a cultural change that provides the ability to read individual and tragic 'news stories' in a broader framework, with structural interventions that modify the power relations between men and women ", underlines the president of D.i.Re.
“The number of femicides remains constant, in the face of the decline in murders, a sign of the ineffectiveness of anti-violence policies. The new National Anti-violence Plan, which expired in 2020, has not yet been launched. What does the government do? It is not enough to condemn violence in words, concrete political interventions are needed to prevent it”, Concludes Antonella Veltri.