Italy’s parliament on Tuesday approved a law that introduces femicide into the country’s criminal law and punishes it with life in prison.
The vote coincided with the international day for the elimination of violence against women, a day designated by the U.N. General Assembly.
The law won bipartisan support from the center-right majority and the center-left opposition in the final vote in the Lower Chamber, passing with 237 votes in favor.
The law, backed by the conservative government of Premier Giorgia Meloni, comes in response to a series of killings and other violence targeting women in Italy. It includes stronger measures against gender-based crimes including stalking and revenge porn.
This is false as far as I can tell; the change is to the Italian Penal Code, specifically Article 577. I can’t find a primary source for the text of the change, but all secondary sources (example) I’ve read say that the life sentence applies “when the act is committed as an act of hatred or discrimination or prevarication or as an act of control or possession or domination as a woman, or in relation to the woman’s refusal to establish or maintain an emotional relationship or as an act of limitation of her individual freedom” (translated to English). It appears like this could be a (near-?)direct quote of the legal language used in the change to the penal code. Do you have a source that contradicts this?