Addressing escalating gender based violence, Italy’s parliament has unanimously voted to add “femicide” as a specific crime to its penal code, punishable by life imprisonment.
The law underlines femicide as the murder of a woman or girl motivated primarily by gender-based hatred, discrimination, domination, or control.
The bill was hailed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as a sign of “political cohesion against the barbaric nature of violence against women,” and it was approved on Tuesday, November 25.
The law coincides with the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, indicating the global scale of the issue.
The newly passed law, which was already passed from Senate in July, creates a unique legal category for gender-motivated killings, moving beyond previous statutes that only took into account aggravating factors such as the victim being a spouse or family member.
It entails the murders that are an “act of hatred, discrimination, domination, control, or subjugation of a woman as a woman,” including those committed when a relationship ends.
The political push for the law gained urgency after the murder of a 22-year-old university student, Giulia Cecchettin, who was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend in November 2023.
Her killing and her family’s powerful advocacy sparked nationwide protests and a fierce public debate about the patriarchal violence in Italy.
The law addresses a persistent and fatal problem in the country. As per the country’s national statistics agency (ISTAT), around 106 femicides were recorded in 2024 which indicates that nearly one woman is killed every three days because of her gender.
As unveiled in the Italian Police data, around 116 women were murdered in 2024 only. Out of those cases, 92.2% were killed by men with about half of the victims killed by a current or former partner.
The prime minister of Italy, Giorgi Meloni, who championed the bill stated, “This is not just an Italian problem; it is a global crisis.”
“With this law we send a clear message that this barbaric violence will be met with the full force of justice,” she added.
Femicide as a global problem is recently indicated by the UN Report released on November 25, which found that “in 2024, around 50,000 women and girls worldwide were killed by their intimate partners or other family members, including fathers, mothers, uncles and brothers; that’s an average of 137 women or girls every day.”
UN data also indicate pervasive nature of gender-based killings revealing a stark regional disparities:
Estimated number of victims of intimate partner/family member femicide, by region (2024)
Despite cross-party support, the law has its critics.
Some opposition groups and academics argue that the government is emphasising on punishment instead of prevention.
They highlight the systemic issues like Italy’s deep gender inequalities, as the country ranks as 85th in the global gender gap index (the lowest in the European Union after Hungary).
For advocates such as Judge Paola di Nicola, who helped draft the femicide law, its power is both legal and cultural.
She stated, “This law means we will be the first in Europe to reveal the real motivation of the perpetrators, which is hierarchy and power. Italy is finally speaking about violence against women having deep roots.”