On June 17, the Cassation ordered an bis appeal trial for a former trade unionist accused of abuse on a hostess who had been acquitted because she in “30 seconds” could have opposed her onset. The comment of Telephone Donna Italia.
Of Stefania BartoccettiFounder of Telephone Donna Italia
What is the time necessary for a gesture, an action, a word, towards a woman so that they can be called “mistreatment”? How do you measure, in seconds, minutes or, even, hours?
We at Telefono Donna Italia, which we take care of mistreatment daily, we have the anti-time reference parameter, a sort of Minority report against violence. We should never take into account the passage of timesimply because it is not and cannot be the unit of measurement of violence. For us, the anti -violence center, the question is clear, so clear that we do not take care of it. If, dramatically, the fact happens, we already know what the order of magnitude is: a moment of mistreatment is enough that the measure is already filled.
We also take care of preventing mistreatment and intervening on abuse. This is precisely the only moment in which we measure ourselves over time, but in these terms: how old will it take the abused woman to resume her violated life in her own hands? How many hours of anguish has passed and will the woman who lived a toxic climate passed? How many seconds did you spend the images of what she has suffered in her mind?
Stefania Bartoccetti, founder of Telephone Donna Italia
When the media, in February, reported the news that a man accused of abuse on a woman had been acquitted because, according to the judges, “she could oppose thirty seconds”, It seemed like an explanation not only unacceptable, but also incomprehensible. Why was the concept of time taken into consideration in a trial for mistreatment? Even worse: how could the carving factor be for an accusation of violence? It didn’t make sense, it had nothing to do with it; They are not assimilable topics.
We took the sentence of the Cassation with relief and pleasure that ordered a new process towards man. A sentence, that of the judge of legitimacy, which underlined some fundamental aspects by phone woman Italy, and that, this story teaches us, we should not take for granted. Like the fact that the “delay in the reaction” of the victim, as well as that of the “manifestation of dissent”, is “irrelevant for the purpose of configuring sexual violence”.
We are happy that the jurisprudence has finally given an effective and clear response to this womantaking an equally strong and clear position towards gender -based violence. However, it must also make us think: how it was possible that Before of the Cassation, even two courts had been able to fulfill the mistreatment for a question linked to the passage of time? In which vulnus Did the judges of those processes precipitate so as not to separate the concept of time from that of violence?
Here, let’s take the good sentence of the Cassation and extend it to all the other possible procedural causes: each judge takes into account it. Justice cannot afford to convey messages that diminish the victims, let alone legitimize the perception that “minor” abuses exist because they are short. Any mistreatment must be treated with due seriousness, sensitivity and competence. Because at the center of the violence always remains the suffering of a woman who cannot be ridiculed by original legal versions.
