Courtesy translation
The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, released the following statement to mark the International Day For The Elimination Of Violence Against Women:
«Dramatic events are stirring the Country’s conscience. A human society founded on criteria of civilization cannot accept or put up with an incessant stream of aggressions against women, when not their assassination.
The incurable grief and sorrow of wounded families and communities is a cause ofdistress to everybody.
When faced with the murder of a woman, the broken life of a young woman, withpersons who are verbally or behaviourally abused in their everyday life, in their family, in their workplace, and in school, we perceive behind this violence the failure of a society that is incapable of promoting truly egalitarian relationships between men and women.
The International Day For The Elimination Of Violence Against Women calls on everyone to renew their personal commitment.
Makeshift social psychology analyses are of no help in justifying a persisting plague that won’t heal despite the efforts made.
We need the joint effort and contribution of Institutions, of associations, and of the world of production, education, and culture to uproot a phenomenon that underminesthe pact underlying our very concept of community.
The mere number of women who suffer aggressions and abuse discloses the existence of a phenomenon that is not only linked to abnormal situations. Therefore, we cannot limit ourselves to show our outrage intermittently.
We are far from having implemented the deep-reaching cultural change enshrined in our Constitution.
A path in which men and women come together to build a better humanity in diversity and solidarity, knowing that there can be no love without respect and without accepting the freedom of the beloved. It is a process in which women acquire equality because they are free to grow, free to know, and free to be free as laid down in the Istanbul Convention ratified by the European Union which is an important reflection of a universal vision of women’s self-determination and equal rights and a decisive step in setting up the policy framework for opposing gender-based violence. »
