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.

  • venusaur@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    Not sure why people assume I’m against it for asking questions. I’m just curious. People are too aggressive.

    So this is an attempt to make murder against women easier to prosecute? Meaning that murderers of women had not been getting life before?

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      Not sure why people assume I’m against it for asking questions.

      Scroll through comments. There are a lot of people in here “just asking questions” but are really participating in bad-faith because they feel the law should be “symmetrical” or that this is some kind of logic puzzle. The article does outline the story and explains it, but again, this is just a response to a disproportionate level of a specific kind of crime. It’s not about the punishment per-say, it’s about how it’s handled by the legal system.

      Meaning that murderers of women had not been getting life before?

      It doesn’t actually matter. This isn’t about how much “time” people are getting in prison, this is about defining a type of crime so that it can be prosecuted differently. Read up about why hate crimes exist or really any kind of law targeting a specific crime in specific circumstances. Prosecution and actual punishment are wildly different things. The law responds to what people are doing, it’s all it can do.

      • venusaur@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Well, I’m not those people.

        The article does little to explain the law and its motivation.

        Hate crime charges are completely different because they enhance existing charges. Would this then eliminate the degrees of murder? If murder of a woman then instantly life vs murdering somebody else and then deciding if first, second, etc.? I supposed you’d have to prove it’s femicide just like a hate crime?

        I support this, I’m just curious. Thanks for the discussion.

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
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          46 minutes ago

          The law isn’t symmetrical. Everything we do in every facet of society is responsive and proportional.

          When there is an asymmetrical problem, we divert resources to addressing that problem in some attempt at making things more equal. It’s just that simple. I haven’t seen anyone offer a better solution or a reason for this attempt to make some small level of proportional response being a problem. Hate crime laws vary from region to region and by specific circumstances. Some parts of those laws address how crimes can be prosecuted, some how those crimes can be charged or punished. It’s besides the point. The point is, it’s laws addressing an imbalance.