Today marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1999, following the 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. This declaration, the first international instrument providing a framework for both national and international action, was the first explicitly addressing violence against women.
Previously known in Latin America and several other countries as the "International Day Against Violence Against Women," November 25th was initially declared during the first Feminist Encuentro for Latin America and the Caribbean held in Bogota, Colombia in July 1981. At this historic gathering, women denounced gender violence - spanning from domestic abuse to rape, sexual harassment, and state violence against women political prisoners.
The date was chosen to commemorate the lives of the Mirabal sisters. Hailing from the Dominican Republic, Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa, 36, 34 and 25, were assassinated during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961) on November 25, 1960. As political activists against the Trujillo regime, they symbolize the fight against the victimization of women and are referred to as the "Inolvidables Mariposas," the "Unforgettable Butterflies."
Minerva Mirabal's powerful words, "If they kill me, I'll reach my arms out from the tomb and I'll be stronger," were almost a prophesy: their deaths, made to look like an accident, shook the public opinion and a group of dissidents assassinated Trujillo six months later.
MInerva's words have inspired the slogans currently being shouted at protests all over Italy, following the tragic death of Giulia Cecchettin, a 22-year-old engineering student murdered by her ex-boyfriend, Filippo Turetta.
Her body was found a few days before her graduation, in a ditch near a lake north of Venice where Turetta abandoned her before fleeing to Germany (Turetta was extradited to Italy today).
Giulia's case is just one of many in Italy, with 106 women murdered this year alone, predominantly by their partners or ex-partners.
In a previous post in September, we highlighted that 80 women had been killed in Italy at the time of writing - between then and now, a relatively short time, another 26 women were killed.
Italy faces challenges in addressing gender-based violence, with societal justifications often portraying men as victims, left by their girlfriends, wives or partners and therefore feeling depressed or inferior, excuses for uncontrollable outbursts of violence and anger that prompt them to kill. In Cecchettin’s case Turetta's allegedly refused to accept her decision to end the relationship, but, from the reports, he was also hurt by the fact that she was going to graduate before him.
Victims of a male toxic behavior, women are often abandoned by the same institutions and laws that should protect them: authorities rarely take seriously the alarms raised by women being stalked or threatened by previous or current partners.
The government, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has been criticized for inadequate support and legislative measures. Earlier on this year Meloni's party, Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) abstained from voting on a crucial EU treaty aimed at preventing violence against women.
In September Meloni defended her then partner, Italian journalist and presenter Andrea Giambruno, after he blamed the victim when discussing the gang rape of a young woman. In August, during his TV show (on one of the channels owned by Mediaset, founded and owned by the late Silvio Berlusconi), Giambruno stated indeed that women could avoid rape by not getting too drunk. In October, though, Meloni split from her partner after two off-air recordings emerged of Giambruno making inappropriate and sexist comments to a female colleague.
Global legal frameworks may also pose obstacles to justice for women. In early November, Michele Faiers Dawn, a 66-year-old woman, was discovered fatally stabbed in Casoli, Abruzzo.
The Italian Chief Prosecutor took action by issuing a pre-trial detention order against Michael Dennis Whitbread, a 74-year-old Englishman implicated in the murder of Dawn, his partner.
However, when the body was found, Whitbread had already left Italian territory to return to the UK. As the UK is now outside the EU, legally it is more difficult to ask for an extradition and in this case, though extradition was sought, it was not granted by the judges of Westminster Court in London.
There never seem to be funds in Italy for anti-violence centres and educational courses in schools; there is never any support for women's collectives that may help victims of violence forced to leave their homes or even their cities to escape a violent partner. But now the time has come to confront this ongoing tragedy: violence against women is everyone's business as it can only be eliminated with a unified approach.
While art alone cannot solve these complex issues, it can inspire action and empower women. Events in London and Madrid are currently celebrating women artists, and there is also an exhibition in Brescia, at the Santa Giulia Museum, that explores women's conditions worldwide.
Entitled "Finché non siamo libere" (Until We Are Free; until 28th January 2024), it moves from the eponymous title of the book by Iranian civil rights advocate Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Prize in 2003. The event actually features quite a few Iranian artists in support of the protest movement that rose after the death of Mahsa Amini, but the exhibition is dedicated to the condition of women in the entire world.
The thematic sections explore indeed various issues, such as multicultural identity and the importance of dialogue, interaction and mutual respect between cultures (through the work of Otobong Nkanga among the others), and power dynamics (Shilpa Gupta explores this theme, for example).
Gender and the condition of women is tackled by South African photographer Zanele Muholi, Sonia Balassanian's cycles of work on paper and Farideh Lashai's Rabbit in Wonderland, partly inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and consisting of seven works.
Environmental concerns, and the self-destruction by human beings of our planet, are instead addressed in the work of Zehra Doğan – a Kurdish artist and journalist with Turkish citizenship, who was arrested and sentenced for having published on social media one of her paintings depicting the destruction of Nusaybin after clashes between security forces and Kurdish insurgents.
The right to memory and identity is explored through the works of Leila Alaoui, a Franco-Moroccan artist who died prematurely due to serious injuries sustained during the terrorist attacks in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, while working on an Amnesty International commission.
Going to see an exhibition featuring women artists may inspire visitors to find their voice or medium to contribute to the elimination of violence against women, but there are obviously other ways.
You may want to read about Artemisia Gentileschi, for example, and explore the theme of female rage in her paintings, ponder about the works of Teresa Margolles, or re-watch Mario Monicelli's 1968 film "The Girl with a Pistol", starring Monica Vitti as Assunta, a young woman who turns from rape victim pushed by the people in her village to marry the man who dishonored her, to an empowered and independent woman.
In her video "3 Minute Scream," filmed in the late '70s (and currently part of the exhibition "Women in Revolt!" at London's Tate Britain) musician Gina Birch, at the time a young art student, screams at the camera, a concept that was replicated at the beginning of the video for her 2022 single "Wish I Was You".
The Italian government asked for a minute of silence in schools on Friday to remember Giulia Cecchettin, but her sister invited students to make noise instead in her honour.
Making a noise and screaming like Birch has never felt more needed to express rage and horror at violence against women, and at femicides in the world and in Italy in particular.
The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women kicks off the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence campaign which ends on December 10th with Human Rights Day.
Image credits for this post
3, 4 and 5. Installation images from Finché non saremo libere, Santa Giulia Museum, Brescia, 2023, by and copyright Alberto Mancini. Courtesy Fondazione Brescia Musei.
6. Sonia Balassanian
Untitled (Self Portrait)-04, 1982
Rigo Saitta Collection
7. Otobong Nkanga
In a Place Yet Unknown, 2017
Collezione Genesi, Milan
Courtesy Otobong Nkanga and Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, Brussels, New York
8. Shirin Neshat
Stories of Martyrdom (Women of Allah series), 1994
Collezione Genesi, Milan
Copyright Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Shirin Neshat and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels
9. Zanele Muholi
Muholi Muholi, Room 107 Day Inn Hotel, Burlington, Vermont, 2017
Collezione Genesi, Milan
Copyright Zanele Muholi. Courtesy Stevenson, Amsterdam / Cape Town / Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson, New York
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