ITALY ENACTS TOUGH NEW LAW: LIFE SENTENCES FOR FEMICIDE

Wed 26 November 2025:

On Tuesday, Italy’s parliament enacted legislation classifying femicide as a distinct offense punishable by life in prison, according to local news outlets.

Members of Italy’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, unanimously voted in favor of the law as the world marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Italy will now join Cyprus, Malta and Croatia as EU member states that have introduced a legal definition of femicide into their criminal codes.

It came after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government in March approved a draft law that for the first time introduced the legal definition of femicide in the country’s criminal law and punishes it with a life sentence.

“I am very pleased with Parliament’s approval of the bill introducing the crime of femicide,” Meloni was quoted by the Italian news agency ANSA as saying.

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Separately, the agency cited data from the country’s main statistics agency, the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), revealing that 106 femicides took place in Italy in 2024, nearly one every three days.

The idea of a law on femicide had been discussed in Italy before but the murder of Giulia Cecchettin by her ex-boyfriend was a tragedy that shocked the country into action.

In late November 2023, the 22-year-old was stabbed to death by Filippo Turetta, who then wrapped her body in bags and dumped it by a lakeside.

The killing was headline news until he was caught, but it was the powerful response of Giulia’s sister, Elena, that has endured.

The murderer was not a monster, she said, but the “healthy son” of a deeply patriarchal society. They were words that brought crowds out across Italy demanding change.

There is no agreed worldwide definition of femicide, which makes it hard to count and compare statistics.

The Italian law will apply to murders which are “an act of hatred, discrimination, domination, control, or subjugation of a woman as a woman”, or that occur when she breaks off a relationship or to “limit her individual freedoms.”

The latest police data in Italy shows a slight fall in the number of women killed last year to 116, with 106 said to be motivated by gender. In future, such cases would be recorded separately and trigger an automatic life sentence, meant as a deterrent.

Italy currently ranks 85th in the Global Gender Gap Index, almost the lowest of all EU states, with just over half of all women in employment, to name just one issue.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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