A Night of Candles, a Day of Law: Italy Draws a Line Against Femicide
The November air in Turin had the brittle edge of approaching winter. Under the glow of streetlamps, a small crowd gathered by the silhouette of the Mole Antonelliana, their faces lit by candles and the screens of phones recording each chant, each name whispered into the night.
“We are here to remember and to make sure this stops,” a young woman in a red scarf told me, voice low but steady. “If nothing else, tonight we remind the country that names were lives.” Around her, dozens of candles flickered in the breeze, each flame a private memorial and a public demand.
That same evening, in Rome, the Italian parliament voted decisively to add a new, named crime to the penal code: femicide — the intentional killing of a woman or girl motivated by discrimination, hatred or gender-based violence. The bill passed with 237 votes in favour and none against, a rare moment of unanimity that comes after years of activism, outrage and grief.
What the new law does — and why it matters
The new article creates a specific category of homicide “based on the characteristics of the victim.” In practice, that means when prosecutors can show a killing was motivated by gendered hatred or discriminatory violence, the offender faces life imprisonment. Previously, Italian law only listed aggravating circumstances — for instance if the killer was the spouse or a relative — but did not single out the gendered nature of the crime itself.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hailed the vote, calling the measure a tool to “defend the freedom and dignity of every woman.” It is a symbolic and legal shift: naming femicide recognizes that many homicides of women are not isolated acts of personal rage but are rooted in gendered power, control and often in patterns of domestic abuse.
Numbers that push a country to action
The urgency behind the law is not abstract. A United Nations report marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women said roughly 50,000 women and girls were killed last year by partners or family members worldwide — a staggering toll. In Italy, national statistics institute Istat reports that of the 327 homicides recorded in 2024, 116 involved female victims; in 92.2% of those cases the alleged killer was male.
These numbers are blunt instruments of truth: they tell us how many lives were extinguished, and they also sketch the patterns that many activists have argued need to be addressed not just as crimes but as a societal problem. “When we count and name, we change how we think about responsibility,” said an organizer at the Turin vigil. “We stop saying ‘crime of passion’ and start saying ‘gendered violence.'”
Voices from the streets and the courtrooms
At the Turin demonstration, the mood was measured rather than theatrical. Many attendees were survivors of abuse or family members of victims, others were university students and elder activists who have spent decades trying to nudge the law and public opinion. A middle-aged man placed a single white rose beside a candle.
“My sister was killed by someone who never seemed to be stopped,” he said, reading from a sheet with careful eyes. “The courts treated it like a tragic accident. I hope this law means the state will call this what it was.” His hands trembled; people around him reached out and squeezed his shoulder.
Legal scholars, too, welcomed the move with cautious optimism. “Creating a stand-alone offence for femicide is important for visibility and for the message it sends,” explained a law professor who has studied gender violence statutes for decades. “But laws are tools. Their impact will depend on implementation: training police to recognize gender-motivated patterns, on prosecutorial willingness to pursue motive, and on support for survivors so they can escape cycles of abuse before they turn lethal.”
Questions that remain
Because the new offence hinges on motive — killing “out of discrimination, hatred or violence” — prosecutors will shoulder a burden of proof that can be complex. Motive in domestic killings can be entangled with jealousy, mental health issues and longstanding abuse. Establishing the gendered character of a crime may require careful investigation of texts, threats, prior convictions and domestic history.
“Courts will need to develop a forensic literacy about gendered violence,” the law professor said. “That means more than legal training — it means multi-disciplinary investigations that take testimonies from friends, neighbours, social services, and look at patterns, not just single events.”
Local color: how culture and conversation are shifting
Italy’s struggle with femicide is shaped by the intimate and public contours of daily life: family gatherings, small-town reputations, the centrality of partnership in social identity. Yet it is also changing. In cafes and on social media, conversations that once landed as taboo are now being voiced openly. Women in the workplace report being more willing to speak about harassment. Men are joining vigils. Churches and unions are holding forums.
“We have a culture that prizes certain notions of masculinity — honour, control — and these can become toxic,” said a youth worker in Naples. “But I’m seeing young men challenge that now. They come to workshops and say, ‘I don’t want to be part of a system that hurts women.’ That’s a small hope, but it’s real.”
At the vigil in Turin, a university student handed out pamphlets with helpline numbers and a hand-drawn map of safe spaces in the city. “We want to make sure the law isn’t just symbolic,” she told me. “This is about prevention as much as punishment.”
More than punishment: prevention, services, and a cultural shift
That balance — between punitive measures and prevention — is central. Policymakers and activists alike agree that more shelters, greater funding for victim services, integrated databases for restraining orders and targeted education programs are critical to reduce future killings. In countries that have curtailed intimate-partner femicides, the success rarely rests on a single law; it comes from a web of social investments.
“A law that points a finger is necessary, but it is not sufficient,” the law professor said. “We must also invest in economic independence for women, in mental health services, in policing that protects rather than shames survivors.”
Looking outward: the significance beyond Italy
Italy’s move joins a wider reckoning taking place across the globe. Many nations are wrestling with how to name and prosecute gender-motivated killings without reducing the issue to headline-grabbing punishments. The debate reaches into questions of education, media representation, and how communities respond when warning signs appear.
So what should you, the reader, take away from this? Will naming femicide change the stories we tell at kitchen tables, the way neighbours intervene, the resources governments allocate? It’s tempting to be cynical — laws can be words on paper. But sometimes words are the hinge that lets societies open or close.
As the candles in Turin guttered toward dawn, a woman in a grey coat folded up her pamphlets. “I didn’t come for the law,” she said quietly. “I came because I want my niece to grow up in a country where a man killing his partner is called by its name.” She looked up at the sky. “If this helps even one mother sleep easier, it was worth it.”
Whether that promise will be kept depends on what happens in police stations, in courtrooms, in classrooms, and in living rooms across Italy. Naming a crime is an important beginning — now comes the far harder work of changing the conditions that let such crimes happen in the first place.
