Rape Cases Seize Italy’s Attention and Expose Cultural Rifts

Shattered glass surrounds the deserted swimming pool, together with dilapidated benches, damaged tiles and a single soiled mattress. Local cops have recognized the forsaken spot as one of many locations the place they are saying two younger ladies have been repeatedly raped by a gang of their friends, all residents of the Italian city of Caivano, on the outskirts of Naples.

Though the rapes of the 2 ladies, cousins simply 10 and 12 years outdated, occurred over many months, they seized nationwide consideration this previous week after they have been reported by the native news media, hurling the difficulty of violence towards girls and ladies in Italy again into the highlight.

Those assaults have been amongst a bunch of horrific crimes which have been everywhere in the news this summer time. Two weeks in the past, the main focus was on a gaggle of seven younger males, together with one 17-year-old, who’re underneath investigation within the rape of a 19-year-old lady in Palermo. Before that, there have been circumstances of ladies being stabbed, shot or poisoned by their companions or these identified to them.

The circumstances have provoked debate in Italy over its uncared for areas, its usually chauvinistic attitudes towards girls and the harmful amplifying position performed by social media. They have additionally uncovered deep divisions over the persistence of the issue of violence towards girls and methods to tackle it.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Caivano, nearly definitely a primary for the working-class city of 37,800, the place heroin addicts inject brazenly throughout the day. Italy’s first lady to carry the workplace, and the primary from the far proper, Ms. Meloni skated previous the numerous points pertaining to girls, focusing as an alternative on legislation and order and calling the crimes “barbaric.”

“This territory will be cleaned up, and you will soon see the results of our presence here,” she mentioned, referring to the issues of “illegality and drugs.” She pledged to reopen the sports activities heart, construct a brand new multimedia library and ship extra lecturers to Caivano’s colleges.

“There can’t be stateless zones in Italy,” she mentioned, talking from the courtyard of the native faculty. “And I am telling this to the many Caivanos of Italy.”

A day earlier than Ms. Meloni’s go to, dozens of cops saved watch on avenue corners and in parks the place the grass grew knee-high. In the wake of the violence, native officers mentioned they might ship extra officers to patrol the realm.

“We don’t need more policemen,” mentioned one older resident, Antonio, who declined to offer his full title for worry of being ostracized in his neighborhood. “We need more time in school, more social workers and more psychologists to help children in families who can’t take care of them.”

The two younger cousins grew up in public housing within the Rione I.A.C.P. district, in what neighbors described as troubled households. A juvenile court docket determined to maneuver them to a foster dwelling. Their case is underneath investigation, and no expenses have but been filed.

“Now that the girls are safe with the competent authorities, we need to think about all the other kids who live here,” mentioned Bruno Mazza, the president of the A Childhood to Live group, which runs the one afternoon actions for youngsters in that neighborhood. “We can’t move everybody out — we need to start from here and now.”

Advocates for girls say circumstances of violence towards girls and ladies should not essentially rising, however they get extra sensational consideration in the summertime months when news cycles are gradual.

Experts mentioned the numbers in Italy, the place 27 p.c of ladies say they’ve skilled violence, have been roughly in step with these of different European nations.

“These are cases that resonate, but they are unfortunately nothing new,” mentioned Antonella Veltri, the president of the Network of Women Against Violence, which runs shelters throughout the nation. “This is a cultural phenomenon, deeply rooted in a chauvinist society for decades.”

“Now it’s taking a new, even more horrible turn with social media that acts like a megaphone,” she mentioned.

Ms. Veltri was referring to the feeling created by one other current case of gang rape in Palermo, which continues to be underneath investigation. This summer time, seven younger males met a 19-year-old lady at a downtown membership. According to the police, they persuaded the bartender to pour her a number of drinks, inspired her to smoke marijuana after which took her to an remoted warehouse, the place they raped her, beat her and filmed the abuse.

A body from safety video that appeared within the news media confirmed them carrying her by the streets, as she may barely stroll. Another shot confirmed them leaving her on the bottom as they headed to a close-by deli.

Italian newspapers revealed leaked excerpts alleged to be from the boys’s WhatsApp messages and conversations. In one, the evening was described as “100 cats on top of a bitch.” In a tapped dialog, one of many rapists reportedly mentioned it was disgusting as a result of it was “too many” on her, however he justified it by saying “flesh is flesh.”

Eventually the names and addresses of these accused within the case turned public, and their social media accounts have been stuffed with insults. But the identical was true of the girl’s Instagram account. In an interview in an Italian newspaper, she spoke of getting suicidal ideas. The authorities finally took her to a shelter.

Hundreds of celebrities in addition to common Italians expressed assist for the girl with the hashtag “I am not flesh.” The father of a woman who was raped in 2020 in Rome wrote a letter to the newspaper La Repubblica through which he described the “ordeal of having your dignity broken.”

His daughter was 16 on the time and, he mentioned, nonetheless had suicidal ideas. “A rape is an intricate puzzle of betrayals,” he wrote. “The betrayals of those who use you as an object, and of those who see in you, the victim who decided to report it to the police to protect everybody, an annoyance to get rid of, exactly like you were just a disposable container for animal ejaculations.”

According to a current report from the nationwide statistics company ISTAT, there may be nonetheless a pervasive view in Italy that girls who’re abused have been someway at fault, courting the aggression.

That angle was echoed this week by Andrea Giambruno, an anchorman on a nationwide industrial tv channel, who can be Ms. Meloni’s accomplice and the daddy of her daughter.

Everyone had a proper to take pleasure in themselves and even get drunk, he mentioned, but when girls averted getting drunk, they could keep away from “getting found by the wolf.”

The comment brought about an uproar amongst leftist politicians and activists. Mr. Giambruno, expressing disgust for his critics, defended himself by reminding them that, in the identical broadcast, he had known as the rapists “beasts” and their acts “abominable.”

Ms. Meloni has not publicly addressed his remarks.

The concept that girls’s actions or clothes can set off violence permeates even the courts in Italy, the place sexuality and sexual violence are nonetheless not at all times differentiated.

This 12 months, a court docket in Florence acquitted two 19-year-olds who have been accused of raping an 18-year-old at a celebration, discovering that there had been a “mistaken perception of consensus,” since she had slept with considered one of them prior to now.

The European Court of Human Rights and U.N. authorities have usually condemned Italy’s courts for choices in rape circumstances that used offensive language: One acquitted the accused and mentioned he had been “passionate,” and one other sufferer was known as “uninhibited.”

Such therapy discourages girls from coming ahead, mentioned Ilaria Boiano, a lawyer for the Differenza Donna girls’s affiliation, which runs the nationwide emergency quantity for girls who’re victims of violence.

“The latest cases are just the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately,” she mentioned. “Many women don’t even report it.”