Violence against women in San Marino, the Equal Opportunities Authority: “We will fight the discrediting of the victims”
“Violence against women is not only a violation of women’s rights and a deprivation of freedom and dignity, a private fact, but constitutes a deep wound for the whole of society”.
TheAuthority for Equal Opportunities of the Republic of San Marinoexplaining in a statement that, “in the moment in which the dignity of a person is not recognized to women and as such it is subjected to discrimination and violence, the whole community is responsible for that malaculture and those stereotypes that still undermine freedom and private life and of women “.
For this reason, the Authority for Equal Opportunities says it has the right, pursuant to art. 20 of the law n. 97/2008, of “appear as a civil party in proceedings for violence against women, minors or against gender: the purpose is precisely to condemn this culture and eradicate it “.
The Authority for Equal Opportunities, “always in solidarity with the victims of violence”, recalls that it is “active today more than ever as a direct interlocutor of the legislator in order to request the necessary interventions to strengthen the protection of women and minorsstill today it considers ‘weak’ subjects of society, to guarantee them not only physical health, but also psychological health, in this case theundeniable right to ‘privacy’ and the defense of their reputation“.
What the Authority intends to fightespecially in the light of recent news stories, “it is discrediting the victim who is likely to suffer harm due to times“.
The rumors and the exploitation of facts or words outside the judicial contest “they end up with damage a woman’s reputation by discrediting her and also becoming acts of violence“.
The consequence of all this, unfortunately, is that “often the victim renounces to continue with the complaint, to defend and protect himself: the result of this is inevitably a lack of trust in institutions and the fear of not being helped, believed and understooddeeming it impossible to obtain justice ”.
Finally, precisely in consideration of all this, the Authority for Equal Opportunities “calls information operators, both in print and online newspapers, to respect for the victims and therefore of the verbal continence in articles dealing with acts of violence“.