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Concluding Observations of the Committee on the
Elimination of Discrimination against
Women 49th Session
REPUBLIC OF ITALY
Excerpts re: Portrayal of Women as Sexual Objects, Stereotypes Regarding Their Role in Society, and Violence Against Women in Italy
23. The Committee calls upon the State
party to:
(a) Put in place a comprehensive,
sustained and coordinated policy,
targeted at men and women, and boys and girls,
to overcome the portrayal of
women as sexual objects and the
stereotypes regarding their roles in society and
in the family, in accordance with article
2 (f) of the Convention. Such a policy
should include legal, administrative and
awareness-raising measures, involve
public officials and civil society and
target the entire population;
(b) Mainstream gender equality and
eliminate patriarchal stereotypes in
the education system;
(c) Make gender equality issues and
sensitivity training an integral,
substantive and mandatory component of all
teachers’ training, at all levels.
24. While the State party recently
took measures to address stereotypical and
sexist attitudes in the media and the
advertising industry, where they are particularly
prevalent and where women and men are
often depicted in a stereotyped manner, the
Committee is concerned about the lack
of information on the impact of such
measures.
25. The Committee recommends that the State party
provide information on
the existence of sexist stereotyping in
the media and in advertisements, on selfregulatory
measures such as codes of conduct and
mechanisms established to
monitor and receive complaints on sexist
elements in the media, and on their
outcomes, in its next periodic report.
Violence against women
26. The Committee welcomes the
adoption of Act No. 11/2009, which introduced
a crime of stalking and mandatory
detention for perpetrators of acts of sexual
violence, the national action plan to
combat violence against women and stalking
and the first comprehensive research
on physical, sexual and psychological violence
against women, developed by the
National Statistics Institute. However, it remains
concerned about the high prevalence
of violence against women and girls and the
persistence of sociocultural
attitudes condoning domestic violence, as well as by the
lack of data on violence against
immigrant, Roma and Sinti women and girls. The
Committee is further concerned about
the high number of women murdered by their
partner or ex-partner (femicide),
which may indicate a failure of the State party’s
authorities to adequately protect the
women victims from their partners or
ex-partners.
27. In accordance with its general
recommendation No. 19 (1992) on violence
against women and the views adopted by the
Committee under the Optional
Protocol procedures, the Committee urges
the State party to:
(a) Put emphasis on comprehensive measures
to address violence against
women in the family and in society,
including through addressing the specific
needs of women made vulnerable by
particular circumstances, such as Roma
and Sinti, migrant and older women and
women with disabilities;
(b) Ensure that female victims of violence
have immediate protection,
including expulsion of the perpetrator
from the home, a guarantee that they
can stay in secure and well-funded
shelters, in all parts of the country, and that
they have access to free legal aid,
psychosocial counselling and adequate
redress, including compensation;
(c) Ensure that public officials,
especially law enforcement officials and
professionals in the judiciary, health
care, social work and education are
systematically and fully sensitized to all
forms of violence against women and
girls;
(d) Enhance the system of appropriate data
collection on all forms of
violence against women, including domestic
violence, protection measures,
prosecutions and sentences imposed on
perpetrators, and conduct appropriate
surveys to assess the prevalence of
violence experienced by women belonging to
disadvantaged groups, such as Roma and
Sinti, migrant and older women and
women with disabilities;
(e) Further pursue, in collaboration with
a broad range of stakeholders,
including women’s and other civil society
organizations, awareness-raising
campaigns through the media and public
education programmes to make
violence against women socially
unacceptable, and disseminate information on
available measures to prevent acts of
violence against women among the
general public;
(f) Ratify the Council of Europe
Convention on preventing and
combating violence against women and
domestic violence, in a timely manner.