Category: DEFINITIONS

ABUSE IN THE FAMILY

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).

OTHER FORMS OF VIOLENCE RESULTING FROM TRADITIONAL PRACTICES HARMFUL TO WOMEN

• FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION
• FEMALE INFANTICIDE and PRENATAL SEXUAL SELECTION
• EARLY MARRIAGE
• FORCED MARRIAGE
• VIOLENCES RELATED TO THE DOWRY
• CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN COMMITTED “IN HONOR”
• MISTREATMENT OF WIDOWS
• TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN FOR THE PURPOSE OF SEXUAL EXPLOITATION

“REVENGE PORN”

ILLECIT DISSEMINATION OF SEXUALITY EXPLICIT IMAGES OR VIDEOS

It is the crime committed by anyone who – after having made, stolen, received or acquired them – sends, delivers, transfers, publishes or disseminates images or videos of sexual organs or sexually explicit content, without the consent of the persons represented.
The crime is punished upon complaint by the offended person to be filed within the term of six months. Proceed ex officio if the facts are committed to the detriment of a person in physical or mental inferiority or to the detriment of a pregnant woman.

SEXUAL VIOLENCE

SEXUAL VIOLENCE is defined as any sexual activity with a person who is unwilling or unable to consent to the sexual act.
Sexual assault is a very generic term that includes different behaviors such as:
• rape (even if the perpetrator is the partner or husband)
• any unwanted sexual contact
• unwelcome exposure of a naked body and exhibitionism and voyeurism
• the sexual abuse of a minor
• incest
• sexual harassment
• sexual acts on clients or employees perpetrated by therapists, doctors, dentists, bosses, colleagues or other professionals.
Sexual violence is an ACT OF POWER and physical force or threats are not always used against the victim, because violence can be very subtle (as in the case in which the perpetrator uses his physicality or social status to frighten or manipulate the victim).
The offense can be prosecuted upon complaint by the injured party (irrevocable) to be filed within one year of the fact.

STALKING

Persecution that manifests itself through a series of threatening or harassing behaviors (for example, stalking, stalking at home, raids on the workplace, phone calls in the middle of the night, messages, persecution through social networks), which provoke the person who suffers them one or more of the following damages:

• severe and persistent state of anxiety or fear
• well-founded fear for one’s own safety or that of one’s loved ones
• forced to change one’s life habits.

Before filing a complaint, the victim can ask for the SUPERVISOR’S WARNING to be adopted, which consists of a warning to the persecutor to refrain from committing further acts of harassment and allows for measures to be taken to withdraw weapons.

Sito a cura di UnivPM in collaborazione con Donne e Giustizia