Italy’s parliament on Tuesday approved a law that introduces femicide into the country’s criminal law and punishes it with life in prison.
The vote coincided with the international day for the elimination of violence against women, a day designated by the U.N. General Assembly.
The law won bipartisan support from the center-right majority and the center-left opposition in the final vote in the Lower Chamber, passing with 237 votes in favor.
The law, backed by the conservative government of Premier Giorgia Meloni, comes in response to a series of killings and other violence targeting women in Italy. It includes stronger measures against gender-based crimes including stalking and revenge porn.
So murdering a woman is now instantly life in prison or life in prison wasn’t on the punishment list for this before?
EDIT: I’m asking questions because I don’t understand something, not because I’m against it. Relax fascists.
Feminicide means murder motivated by hate for women, also known as misogyny. If you kill your gran to get the inheritance and don’t have a family chat calling her a dumb broad that doesn’t deserve to be richer than the males of your line you’re only liable for regular murder
And regular murder isn’t life in prison?
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Not sure why people assume I’m against it for asking questions. I’m just curious. People are too aggressive.
So this is an attempt to make murder against women easier to prosecute? Meaning that murderers of women had not been getting life before?
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Well, I’m not those people.
The article does little to explain the law and its motivation.
Hate crime charges are completely different because they enhance existing charges. Would this then eliminate the degrees of murder? If murder of a woman then instantly life vs murdering somebody else and then deciding if first, second, etc.? I supposed you’d have to prove it’s femicide just like a hate crime?
I support this, I’m just curious. Thanks for the discussion.
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No.
No. The law has nothing to do with skipping trials or mandatory minimums.
It’s just a new way to charge somebody, and the sentence is the same as murder.
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“Triggered” is really good way to categorize these responses.
The topic makes them project concepts onto it, like the perpetrators must be male - which is basically telling on themselves.
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I absolutely agree. In my mind this is an example where people could be “yes-and”ing the law: Yes, female victims absolutely need more nuanced protection, and male sexual assault victims need more nuanced protection (for example).
The reason you don’t see a lot of these folks arguing for a men’s equivalent…is they know that it’s functionally not a problem…which also undercuts their own argument.
I can imagine…I work in poverty outreach and with at risk youth…I hear some grotesque things from across the spectrum.
I’m a full Reddit refugee…a few months ago I got a 3 day auto ban for directly quoting Worf from Star Trek. Not going back, this time…the time I was away from it made me realize what an enshitified mess it has become.
Ah I see. So somebody would be convicted of femicide instead of murder. What’s the intended affect of that?
Appropriate culpability and awareness. The law is designed to both serve as a mechanism for appropriate justice, as well as a way to highlight and ongoing problem in Italian culture.
Got it. It’s more than just murder. There should be a word for rape by men as well.
It’s not “more than murder”, no. It’s a type of murder.
No there shouldn’t, the vast majority of cases of rapes are committed by men. If you were being logically consistent, you’d advocate for a different word/charge for cases of rape against men - because that’s one of the largest category of unreported sexual crime.
I’ve spent a few minutes on google during my lunch break. Turns out, it’s as sexist as it sounds actually. Femicide is a crime that uniquely qualifies the victim as a woman, and the perpetrator as a man. In Italy, that specific crime now has a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison if convicted. Prior to today, I assumed that life in prison was the minimum sentence for any murder in Italy, but that was an improper assumption. The mandatory minimum is 21 years for murder in Italy. Femicide now has a higher mandatory minimum.
Par for the course of conservative governments.
Thanks!