In January 2020 the GREVIO, Group of experts on violence against women of the Council of Europe, published on Report on Italy, the result of two years of monitoring the application of the Istanbul Convention on violence against women and domestic violence in our country.
La Istanbul Convention on Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence was adopted by the Council of Europe, a body that includes 47 countries, in 2012. Italy ratified it with the law n. 77/2013 and entered into force in 2014.
The campaign "Violence against women. What state are we in? ", launched by D.i.Re – Donne in rete contro la violenza on the occasion of March 8, 2020, he wants draw the attention of the institutions to the recommendations made by GREVIO and bring their contents to the attention of public opinion. For one year, every month, this campaign will investigate a topic covered by the Grevio Italia monitoring report (hereinafter the GREVIO Report) and in March 2021 D.i.Re it will take stock of the concrete commitment of the State.
The goal is to make known the contents of the GREVIO Report to the public, considering that 3 months after its publication, the Equal Opportunities Department has not yet fulfilled the first of GREVIO's recommendations, namely the timely translation and wide dissemination of the text.
The first stage of the campaign of D.i.Re "Violence against women. What state are we in? " therefore addresses the recommendations of GREVIO relating to public support for anti-violence centers and shelters and data collection on violence, related issues, which the Covid-19 emergency has highlighted in all their importance.
The importance of data collection is one of the central points of the Istanbul Convention which highlights its usefulness for knowing the phenomenon, understanding the effectiveness of the policies adopted and for directing the resources used.
Precisely for this key role, GREVIO deals with data collection from various points of view in its Report on Italy.
In particular, GREVIO focused on methods in which data are collected with respect to the inalienable principle of anonymity for victims of violence who seek support, providing the Italian State with precise recommendations in this regard.
Indeed, GREVIO expresses strong reservations on the interruption of funding to anti-violence centers by those Regions, such as Lombardy, which condition the disbursement of funds on the transmission of the tax code of the women received; a practice not accepted by some centers at the cost of losing their funding.
The experts remember that respect for the privacy and anonymity of women victims of violence in the collection of data on violence is one of the priority criteria also established by the National Plan against violence and that any request for consent from women would undermine the basic relationship of trust in the reception methodology of anti-violence centers.
Recommendations from the GREVIO Report to the Italian State:
- collect dati on violence against women systematically and at regular intervals
- collect disaggregated data for all forms of violence indicated in the Istanbul Convention, with indication of the kind of victims and perpetrators, of the relationship between them and also including information on the presence of child witnesses and victims
- carry out a data survey that allow analysis of the path of cases in the criminal justice system to understand the existing gaps, the condemnation or recidivism rates or the lack of protection of women and their children / and that can reach up to feminicides or homicides of minors
- pay attention in civil proceedings to all data necessary to analyze the risk assessment at various levels
- comply with the provisions on the protection of personal data in the process of data collection, storage and transformation in order to guarantee the protection of the privacy and anonymity of the victims.
The campaign is realized thanks to the kind contribution of the Kering Foundation
