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In Italy, the reception and support system for battered women is based on the work of centers and shelters against violence, structures whose existence is required by law but which the State has never been able to finance and organize adequately. As feminist movements and women’s associations have been saying for years, centers and shelters against violence are financed with mechanisms that are not clear, effective, homogeneous and, above all, sufficient. Furthermore, their presence in the different regions is very unequal and in recent years – with a greater interest in the problem of violence against women – attempts to resort to funds from associations that deal mainly with others have also increased. problems.
What are we talking about
The Agreement of the State, Regions and Autonomous Provinces signed in Italy in 2014 establishes that the centers for the fight against violence are “structures in which women of all ages and their minor children who are victims of violence are welcomed free of charge, regardless of their your place of residence “. The anti-violence centers constitute, therefore, the axis of the territorial network to take care of the victim of violence. Similarly, the Refuge Houses are “specialized structures, with a secret address, that provide safe accommodation to women who suffer violence and their children free of charge and regardless of their place of residence, with the aim of protecting women and their children and safeguard their physical and mental safety. “
Since 2018, ISTAT has been conducting annual surveys on the performance and services offered by centers and shelters against violence, in collaboration with the Department of Equal Opportunities. The last survey was conducted in 2019 and refers to the activity carried out in the previous year.
As of December 31, 2018, 302 Anti-Violence Centers (CAV) reported by the Regions (adhered to the State-Regions Agreement 2014), are equivalent to 0.05 centers per 10 thousand inhabitants, while – if the offer of the centers is compared with the It is estimated that the victims who have suffered physical or sexual violence in the last 5 years – must be 1.1 per 10 thousand inhabitants.
In 2017, 49,394 women attended anti-violence centers, an increase of 13.6 percent compared to 2016. 63 percent of women who began the process of distancing themselves from violence have children, minors in 67.7 percent of the cases. . Foreign women represent 28 percent.
There are several ways to contact the centers: 95.3 percent of the Centers have the 1522 telephone number, which accepts requests for help and support from victims of violence and stalking, and 68.5 percent for one hundred of the Centers guarantee the 24 hour availability The individual Centers are open an average of 5 days a week for about 7 hours a day.
The services offered by anti-violence centers are many. The most frequent are those of listening and reception, guidance and accompaniment to other services of the territorial network, legal support, psychological support and counseling, support for autonomy, expulsion route and job orientation. Among the services provided by the 2014 Agreement, the housing support service and the support service for minors are less provided. Among the services not provided for by the Agreement, support for parenting, emergency intervention and language mediation are less frequent.
And problems
From the data it can be deduced that the anti-violence centers are very few, with entire territories discovered especially in the South and in the Islands; the percentage of volunteering exceeds half the work of the operators within the centers; Compared with the high percentage of women of foreign origin hosted in the centers, the participation of cultural mediators is still too low and they become essential to support women seeking asylum and refugees.
It also appears that, as explained in the latest report by the Parliamentary Investigation Commission on Femicide, only half of the centers run by private non-profit organizations specialize exclusively in violence against women: “Among them, there are in In particular, historical centers against violence, managed by associations linked to the women’s movement, for which the feminist and gender approach in responding to violence is fundamental: it is precisely these types of associations that, over time, have developed the “reception methodology based on the relationship between women” “, also taken as a key requirement of the laws approved on the matter in Italy and the State-Regions Agreement of 2014.
The ISTAT survey, then, overlaps with that carried out independently by DiRe, which brings together more than 100 independent centers against violence that meet the requirements of the Istanbul Convention, the most advanced text and the first legally binding international instrument to prevention and contrast. violence against women and domestic violence. The Convention was adopted by the Council of Europe in 2011, signed by Italy in 2013, but it is still largely not applied today.
Once again, the photograph of the Italian anti-violence system that emerges from the ISTAT survey on anti-violence centers today does not distinguish between anti-violence centers that meet the criteria of the Istanbul Convention, providing a comprehensive reception that accompanies the woman until she is reconquered. of their autonomy, and centers that instead only provide some services, in fact, leave women alone, especially in the initial phase of their new life, “said Antonella Veltri, president of DiRe. “The DiRe centers, in addition to giving the complete path, act in training and therefore in prevention”, adds Veltri, “and therefore are agents at 360 degrees of the structural and cultural change necessary to overcome male violence against women ”.
The other great problem of anti-violence centers in Italy has to do with resources, which are absolutely below necessity, and which have very slow, not very homogeneous, not very transparent and very difficult mechanisms.
Money
Anti-violence centers that meet the requirements of the Agreement are financed primarily from public funds. On Tuesday, November 24, a meeting was held on the anti-violence centers organized by the Commission of Inquiry on Femicide. Senator Valeria Valente and the president of the Council of Ministers Giuseppe Conte, the Minister of Equal Opportunities and Family, Elena Bonetti, and several representatives of the associations or movements that historically manage the centers in Italy attended by videoconference. anti-violence.
During the meeting, Valente explained that “we still cannot support the anti-violence centers, due to regulatory, administrative and bureaucratic difficulties.” Only 72 percent of the funds allocated in 2015 and 2016 went to anti-violence centers; only 67 percent of those allocated in 2017, and only 10 percent of those planned for 2019, and we are at the end of 2020. However, funding has increased over the years: more resources are allocated, but times are not coming tools.
Simona, from the Casa delle Donne Lucha y Siesta in Rome and an activist with the feminist movement Non Una di Meno, explained to us that “there is enormous diversity between regions in terms of donations. In some the funds have arrived and been distributed, in other regions the funds have arrived but have not yet been disbursed. The supply chain of government, regions, municipalities, centers is always too long, and this not only has to do with an efficiency problem, but also with conscience: there is an administrative-bureaucratic question and there is a political question regarding priority we give it: we spend that money on something else and then we have to get it back, but sometimes we don’t.
Antonella Veltri, from the Di.Re network, during yesterday’s meeting asked Conte why the resources of the 2019 National Anti-Violence Plan have been transferred to the regions, diverting part of it to the Covid emergency, thus subtracting part of the funds to the “collateral activities” foreseen in the Plan, starting with training and labor reintegration. He asked why the funds must necessarily go through the regions and if it is not possible to foresee a direct allocation by the government to the centers and a multi-year programming of funds, favoring the streamlining of administrative procedures and timely settlement of funds with transparency and accessibility to information.
Finally, he asked why a review of the minimum criteria for the accreditation of anti-violence centers defined in the State-Regions Agreement of 2014 has not yet been implemented: “To date, these criteria are generic to the point of allowing accreditation as anti-violence centers also to organizations that do not have violence against women as a priority area of intervention and that do not provide support from reception to autonomy, including labor reintegration, as required by the Istanbul Convention and as the centers do I’ll say “.
Simona, from Non Una di Meno, explained that “in recent years, thanks to feminist movements, resources have increased. Precisely for this reason, as happened ten, fifteen years ago with immigration, many neutral organizations, foundations, cooperatives have come out that deal with other things, but are trying to obtain these resources, which they are applying to build study plans. which will later be used to manage public services. In short, anti-violence centers are becoming, for some, a business: but we are talking about realities that are outside the Istanbul Convention, outside the ways of self-determination and autonomy of women who are carried out by those who work and have experience. in this for decades, facing the question only in terms of assistance, if not with the same vision of the violence of those who provoke it.
In January 2020, GREVIO, the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Violence against Women, published the Report on Italy, the result of two years of monitoring the application of the Istanbul Convention. The Report highlights the obstacles to the cultural, political and material ways out of the violence also due to inadequate and insufficient policies and gives Italy precise instructions to resolve the situation. Some GREVIO recommendations are related to public support for centers and shelters against violence, an issue that the COVID-19 emergency has highlighted in all its importance.
The Istanbul Convention stipulates that centers must have stable and continuous funding. It recommends supporting and strengthening independent women’s associations committed to preventing and combating gender-based violence and supporting centers that meet the criteria of the Convention. While the Convention establishes the inalienable principle of anonymity for women attending the centers, some Italian regions, including Lombardy, provide funding only to structures that provide the tax code for women, a practice that has not been accepted by several centers at the cost of loss of funding.
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