Italy’s parliament on Tuesday approved a law that introduces femicide into the country’s criminal law and punishes it with life in prison.
The vote coincided with the international day for the elimination of violence against women, a day designated by the U.N. General Assembly.
The law won bipartisan support from the center-right majority and the center-left opposition in the final vote in the Lower Chamber, passing with 237 votes in favor.
The law, backed by the conservative government of Premier Giorgia Meloni, comes in response to a series of killings and other violence targeting women in Italy. It includes stronger measures against gender-based crimes including stalking and revenge porn.
Femicide is a type of murder. You seem to just be playing word games. Culpability is important for justice. Different types are murder are treated differently…it’s not a complicated concept.
I don’t even know what you’re trying to argue at the end. There are a lot of important “pillars” when you’re dealing with real world issues. You don’t just focus on one/your preferred pillar or attack the other pillars…you work together to build more and buttress what you have.
Femicide is a type of murder. Not a different crime. Just a subset of the many possible motives there could be for murder. Unless there is some substantial difference in establishing guilt or sentencing, inventing a “new crime” of femicide doesn’t change anything. Culpability is an important factor in murder cases, that doesn’t change here. What I’m trying to argue is that this isn’t functional legislation, it’s empty virtue signalling, from a government that is actively reversing social progress and making matters worse for women.
I don’t agree that it doesn’t change anything: it serves two purposes. First, the law has unique statutes when assessing culpability…second it serves as a public awareness tool, a deterrent, when the crimes happen - and all laws are ultimately intended to be deterrents.
You’re just saying “murder is murder is murder”, and that’s simply not how any court functions.