A series of repeated behaviors carried out by the abuser towards a person in the family or in any case cohabitant (even in an unstable manner), or a person subject to his authority (for example for work reasons), or entrusted to him for educational reasons education, supervision, custody, exercise of a profession or an art (for example the scholastic relationship between the teacher and the pupil), which may consist of beatings, insults, threats, abuse, humiliation, acts of contempt and offense to dignity, aimed at causing a systematic oppression of the victim, so as to make his life and existence particularly painful.
The criminal case does not only protect individuals belonging to a family nucleus, but all victims of ill-treatment who suffer such an affront from a subject with whom they have a personal, continuous and habitual relationship.
In the case of domestic violence, the mistreatment by one parent against the other is considered and punished as violence even on minor children who witness such violence (so-called indirect or witnessed violence).