Violence against women – Anna, escaped from her partner in total confinement: “He wanted to break my head. He made me believe that he was worthless”

After passing through the deserted city, which seemed to him “a movie about the end of the world,” he came to a hotel room made available by Be free, a social cooperative that during the first wave and the first closure (thanks to funding from the Haiku Lugano Foundation and a collaboration with Federalberghi) made available to women victims of violence some rooms in different hotels from the capital, to allow them to leave the house where they lived. Anna was the first of 18 women to use this service from April 3 to June 30.

“It was not Covid that triggered violence against women – explains Francesca De Masi, vice president of Be free – The health emergency has only exacerbated and increased all the problems already present. Gender violence is a structural problem“The point, according to the cooperative against violence and trafficking, is the chronic lack of places in the shelters, compared to the calculated need:” According to the Council of Europe in a city like Rome there should be 300 places for reception, one for every 10 thousand inhabitants, instead there are only 40. “However, after the pandemic, Francesca says, the methods of reaching women in difficulty have increased:” Now, to communicate we use a lot of WhatsApp, email and even our Facebook page. “