Page 190 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 1

IPS131 Maria G. M. et al.
Ministry of Interior). On the contrary in the same year only the 15.8% of men
were killed in the context of family relationships (37 out of 234 men).
Gender differences are evident and very stable. In Italy during the last
decade the percentage of women homicides in the family context fluctuated
from a minimum of 62.7% in 2010 to a maximum of 77% in 2014, decreasing
to 72.4% in 2017.
Furthermore, while the murders of men constantly declined, women’s
murders are stable. Men victims of murder decreased from 4.0 to 0.9 per
100,000 males between 1992 and 2015 (according to the Causes of Death
Data), while for women the rate fell from 0.6 to 0.4.
This means that for men although the incidence of murders still remains
greater (about double) than for women, the progress was remarkable,
especially because of the decline of deaths due to common criminality and to
organized crime. While for women, who started from a much more favourable
situation, the decrease followed a much slower rhythm in the same period.
Homicide data on women and gender related homicides tell a different story
compared to homicides of men.
Concerning the other expressions of VAW, more common than homicide,
ISTAT carried out a survey on Women’s safety in 2006 and in 2014. Collected
data show a sensitive gap between the number of victims of physical or sexual
violence and the number of those who reported the suffered violence to the
police and the competent authorities.
VAW occur mainly in the familiar environments, where a woman should
feel safer. This characteristic explain why this phenomenon remains to a large
extent underreported. The proximity with the perpetrator, who is a loved
person, and the complex and opposing emotional and psychological reactions
do not help the victims’ disclosure.
It therefore is important to consider both sources of data, the police and
judicial offices and the ad hoc surveys, designed to investigate directly the
women experiences. The integrated information better represents the entity
of the phenomenon and its characteristics.
In 2013 the Italian government established a task force on VAW
measurement. The aim of the task force was to identify data useful to design
policies to combat VAW, to protect victims, to help victims in escaping from
violence and cope with suffered violence, caring them and giving help for re-
integration.
ISTAT coordinated the task force that involved several actors and
institutions: Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Health, Ministry
of Army, Ministry of Work and Ministry of Social Politics; NGOs (shelters,
helpline 1522, VAW services); VAW experts, as academic and lawyers.
It was a long and difficult work, first of all to share the same language and the
same aims and to achieve a wider view on the phenomenon.

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