Violence is a spiral. Loredana today she is 40, she left Italy at the age of 20 and moved to Germany. She recently lived for nearly a year in a shelter for battered women. But she was kicked out for defending a frail companion.
When violence takes the place of hugs and caresses, the colors fade and only one remains: the blue of the marks on the skin
A life full of violence, starting with her mother, the one who brought her into the world. Following the men she is with, a companion from the dormitory, even a stranger who hosts her. But today Loredana said stop. He is still looking for his corner of the world. It will find it. She owes it first of all to herself but also to all the abused women whom no one defends.
Violence destroyed Loredana's childhood
La violence on the part of Loredana's mother they were a daily ritual. They took the place of caresses and hugs to such an extent that it seemed normal to her. The first bruises, the first blue spots came from there, from that child's world that lost its colors too soon. Loredana was trapped in a whirlwind of pain and it took too many years to understand it. When a glimmer of conscience opened up among her people, still very young, she decided to go to Germany, believing it was a better corner in which to build a new life, a family of her own but it didn't work.
The tragic reality in the Frauenhaus
Frauuenhaus mean woman's house. A home refuge in which it is assumed to find peace and tranquility, or rather, protection for battered women but for Loredana it was not like that.
The orange walls of the room cheer up the woman, who tries to cheer herself up thinking that everything will be fine, convincing herself that the violence suffered for years will stop chasing her. But he was wrong here too.
In a few months, Loredana begins to notice unusual attitudes. A friend of hers is kicked out. A very sweet and defenseless girl, a prisoner of despair. Nobody wants to tell her the reason for all this and so Loredana begins to become an uncomfortable person, until she discovers the tragic truth about her young friend and is thrown out of the shelter house.
Lara, just 20 years old, was selling herself on the streets, with the clean and beautiful face of someone who could ride the clouds. She does it for that disenchantment about love that has fallen on her like a boulder. For that lost virginity without any warm intertwining of hands.
And this was yet another disappointment for Loredana, who had believed that the shelter could be a place of protection for abused women. On the other hand, those who are uncomfortable, those who do not allow themselves to be submitted and those who point out what is wrong, are thrown out. Today Loredana sleeps in the back of an acquaintance's pizzeria. He waits for the customers to return to their warm homes and, when there is no one left, he hides there. Soon he will have to leave and will still look for that corner of the world that awaits him. It's not easy but he will make it.
Stop at violence on women!
A day to scream all together stop with violence against women. It is that of November 25, promoted by the UN in 1999 and which takes place every year in memory of the three sisters Mirabel raped and killed on November 25, 1960 in Dominican Republic. A violence that, despite increasingly severe laws also introduced in our country, is against the femicides both against rapes e stalking, continues to perpetuate itself with alarming figures.
In 2016, according toIstat, were 149 le women killed, one every three days. Three out of four of these murders were committed within the family, by a partner, a rejected ex-husband or boyfriend, or a relative.
- rapes, and only those reported, they would be almost 11 a day. Many remain hidden in the silence of shame which does not lead to complaints. Thus almost 7 million women have experienced some form of violence, from stalking to verbal insult to actual sexual violence suffered, according to Istat, by one million and 157 thousand women.
Una violence that knows no borders and social classes
That of prevarication of the male it is a violence that also affects the so-called upper echelons of society. Just think, remaining only in the latest episodes of the news, of the scandal caused by the confessions of famous actresses on sexual abuse of the powerful American film producer Harvey Weinstein and the cases of harassment reported to the European and British Parliaments.
And what about women who have been disfigured with acid by jealous ex partners or by strangers, like Jessica Notaro or the lawyer from Urbino Lucia Annibali.
La violence against women, in my opinion, remains aemergency. And to fight it, the day, albeit important, of November 25th is not enough. Day that, among the many events organized by associations fighting for the defense of women, will see, at the invitation of the President of the Chamber, Laura Boldrini, 650 women fill the Montecitorio courtroom that day. In the meantime, the iworld anti-violence initiative with an invitation to ahour of silence from the 13 14.
But if for fend laid down by the male violence there is no shortage of laws and tools, in addition to the anti-violence telephone number 1522, it is now possible to contact the support network also through aapp, a dedicated site (www.1522.eu) and social networks such as Facebook and Instagram.
We need a cultural change and amale education who knows how to make men accept equality with women who are increasingly autonomous and capable of occupying important social and work roles. So that they cannot and should no longer, in the face of a refusal, be the architects of so much, absurd violence.
