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Acid Attacks in Italy: Gender-Based Violence, Victimhood, and Media Representation

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Representing Gender-Based Violence

Abstract

Acid attacks in Italy became the object of political attention following the extensive media coverage of two landmark cases in 2013 and 2017. This attention culminated in Senator Laura Puppato’s 2017 bill aimed at introducing the crime of ‘omicidio di identità’ [identity murder] into the Italian penal code, framing acid attacks as a specific form of gender-based violence committed by men against women. This chapter examines the criminal patterns of the acid attacks reported between 2011 and 2020 by the online version of the widely sold newspaper la Repubblica, and how the gender identity of victims and perpetrators is constructed. We argue that the 2017 bill was a response to a selected number of cases which received wide media coverage solely because their victims fit into gendered constructions of ideal victimhood (Christie, ‘The Ideal Victim’. In E.A. Fattah (Ed.) From Crime Policy to Victim Policy, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1986). Consequently, we consider the limitations of the resulting 2019 law that introduced the crime of ‘Deformazione dell’aspetto della persona mediante lesioni permanenti al viso’ [Deformation of a person’s appearance by permanent injuries to the face].

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Notes

  1. 1.

    All the translations from Italian are ours unless stated otherwise.

  2. 2.

    On the base of ‘Legge 15 ottobre 2013, n. 119’ (Law 15 October 2013, n. 119), if the victim had pressed charges, she would have been entitled to a special one-year residence permit as a victim of ‘Maltrattamenti contro familiari e conviventi’ [domestic violence], which could be converted into a student visa or a working permit when expired. However, due to the lack of certainties about its extension, the resident permit was not considerate an adequate incentive to press charges. This situation should make the case even more central to a discussion of violence against women and intimate partner violence, and the need to extend protection to victims regardless their migrant status.

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Correspondence to Olga Campofreda .

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Rossoni, S., Campofreda, O. (2023). Acid Attacks in Italy: Gender-Based Violence, Victimhood, and Media Representation. In: Williamson Sinalo, C., Mandolini, N. (eds) Representing Gender-Based Violence. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13451-7_6

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