Global Affairs: International (Italy -wk #4)
In response to an article "‘See what he did to me. This isn’t love’ – the acid attacks shaming Italy" by Angela Giuffrida, The Observer, Sunday 30 April 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/29/acid-attacks-italy-gessica-notaro
Former Miss Italy finalist and dolphin trainer Gessica Notaro, had acid thrown in her face on January 10th, at the age of 28, on the sixth anniversary of her brother’s suicide. Allegedly the attacker was her 29 year old ex-boyfriend, Jorge Edson Tavares.
Tavares, is in custody but denies any involvement in the attack. Notaro appeared in court for the trial of her ex-boyfriend on charges of stalking last week.
With attacks involving cheap and easily obtainable corrosive liquids on the rise in Italy, this case has captured the public’s attention and Notaro has started to take on a role in the campaign to stop violence against women.
Italy introduced laws in 2013 to crack down on violence against women after being shamed by a UN report, which said domestic violence was the country’s “most pervasive form of violence”
Data given by the police to SOS Stalking, an organisation set up to give harassment victims support, shows there were 27 registered corrosive liquid assaults in 2016, compared to 8 in 2013.
Femicide has a high rate in Italy, 116 women were killed by their partners or ex-partners between January and November last year, according to figures from the national statistics agency.
Lorenzo Puglisi, a Lawyer and founder of SOS Stalking says, “Here some 90% of acid attacks are against women by former boyfriends who can’t accept that the relationship is over. Acid is their most destructive tool, a way of saying ‘If I can’t have you, then nobody else can either’. It’s partly a cultural problem because many people still see women as objects to be owned by men.”
“In recent years police have increased their knowledge about acid attacks, so we now have agents who are equipped to deal with cases,” said Puglisi.
He goes on to say the problem is Italy doesn’t have the budget to prevent this kind of crime like, for example, Britain. He also said GPS tracking technology could cut this type of crime in half.
Gessica Notaro and ex-boyfriend Edson Tavares. Photograph: Alamy
Notaro says what she feared most was losing her sight. “I started to pray – if I survive, take away my beauty, but please not my eyes. What would I do without my eyes?”
“And now I feel useful in helping other people. I will continue to campaign, which I know in itself will be a challenge – but after having acid thrown in my face, very few things frighten me now.”
For me, this is so hard to grasp mentally.
