SYLLABUS

GS-1: Social empowerment, communalism, regionalism & secularism

Context: The Italian Parliament as a response to a series of recent violent incidents against women, has approved a law that specifically criminalise femicide.

More on the News

• Italy will now join Cyprus, Malta and Croatia as EU member states that have introduced a legal definition of femicide into their criminal codes.
• In India, for instance, dowry deaths have separate legal provisions associated with them.

Femicide

• Femicide is recognised as one of the most severe and extreme forms of violence directed against women.
• A UN Women report noted that in 2024, almost 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members, but highlighted that many countries still do not provide detailed data.

• In 2022, several United Nations bodies developed a framework to classify femicides into three categories, based on the woman’s relationship with the perpetrator(s):

• Femicide by intimate partners – killings committed by current or former partners.
• Femicide by other family members or relatives – killings by non-partner family/household members.
• Femicide by other perpetrators – killings committed outside the family or intimate-partner context (e.g., by acquaintances, strangers, criminal networks). 

Significance of the Femicide Law

• The law represents progress toward addressing systematic gender-based violence and strengthens protective legal frameworks.
• It raises public consciousness on gender discrimination and the urgent need for cultural and structural change.
• The move adds to International efforts to recognize and combat femicide as a distinct and grave crime against women.

Sources:
BBC
Indian Express
Nytimes