Page 187 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 1

IPS131 Maria G. M. et al.

The integrated system on Violence Against
Women (VAW) in Italy: Measuring,
communicating and using VAW data
Maria Giuseppina Muratore, Lucilla Scarnicchia, Claudia Villante
ISTAT – National Institute of Statistics

Abstract
In 2017 an agreement between the Italian National Statistical Office (ISTAT)
and the national Department for Equal Opportunity (DEO) at the Presidency
of the Council of Ministers was signed in order to create an integrated data
system on Violence against women (VAW) with the aim to support
stakeholders in designing policies to prevent and combat VAW. The Council
of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women
and domestic violence (2011), the so called Istanbul Convention , ratified in
Italy in 2013, requires States to offer a holistic response to violence against
women, through the “4 Ps approach”: Prevention of violence through
sustained measures that address its root causes and aim at changing attitudes,
gender roles and stereotypes that make violence against women acceptable;
Protecting women and girls who are known to be at risk and setting up
specialist support services for victims and their children; Prosecuting the
perpetrators; adopting and implementing state‐wide integrated Policies that
are effective, co-ordinated and comprehensive. Furthermore, based on article
11 “Data collection and research”, the Convention recognizes for the first time
the crucial importance and the role played by statistics in improving the
awareness of gender based violence and its monitoring. With the aim to
respond to the arisen needs the Italian integrated system was built up. It is a
huge container fully accessible online which collect the main data and
indicators, but also the existing legal frameworks, experiences and policies
regarding violence against women. Data are being progressively organised in
a dedicated data warehouse. The system collects official statistics from both
kind of sources, survey data and register statistics, which are related to the
following fields:
1. the prevention and more specifically data on the gender stereotypes and
stereotypes towards violence against women, that are collected among the
adult population and the student population, respectively using computer
assisted telephone interviews ( CATI) and computer assisted self-interview
technique (CASI) ;
2. the size of the phenomenon in its several forms, as physical, sexual,
psychological and economical violence inside and outside the family, as it is
observed through the VAW surveys; sexual harassment and violence at work

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