Violence against women in Italy after Beijing 1995: the relationship between women’s movement(s), feminist practices and state policies

Overview

Italy, as well as other United Nations Member States, took up the global call to end all forms of violence against women and girls (VAW) embraced in the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Through this contribution, we aim to explore the tensions and synergies between the agendas of local women’s rights movement(s) and government strategies to implement Beijing. Specifically, we will analyse the role of women’s groups and feminist movement(s) in shaping VAW policies and interventions, on one hand, and, on the other hand, the relationships between the Italian strand of feminism and VAW policies and practices. Based on original quantitative and qualitative data collected between 2018 and 2019, we will analyse the extent to which feminist thoughts have (or have not) been recognised by Italian institutions in the past 25 years in relation to the approaches adopted to combat VAW.