What to do if you are a victim of violence

“He yelled at me, you bitch.”

«And what did you tell him before?».

When a woman is insulted and often says so, the first question she is asked is the one you just read. This is how we were raised from a young age. It’s patriarchy. A situation that has led Italy to be one of the five countries in Europe, together with Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Spain, in which women are killed most often. In daily life this translates into violent, toxic or manipulative relationships, in which women must undertake long journeys before recognizing the violence to which they are subjected. And they don’t always succeed. Since January 2023, there have been 79 victims of femicide in Italy. It is fundamental know the tools that exist and are available to women to escape the spiral of violence. To save themselves.

One of the most effective is the 1522, the public utility number of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers which was created with the aim of reaching all the people who suffer violence in our territory, or know people who suffer violence or even just need to have information. The number 1522 And active 24 hours a dayevery day of the year and is accessible from the entire national territory free of charge, both from fixed network That mobile. Reception is available in Italian, English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Farsi, Albanian, Russian Ukrainian, Portuguese, Polish.

«1522 after having done a needs analysis through a series of questions, such as “what is happening to you”, “who is the perpetrator of the violence”, “have you already asked for help”, “have you ever been to hospital”, “are you in charge of some service”, ” you have already asked the police for help”, provides the woman with the closest point of reference to resolve her situation and it is almost always an anti-violence centre”. Talking is Arianna Gentili, responsible for 1522, expert in gender violence. Together with the operators present within the switchboard, every day she assists women victims of violence. «It also happens that women call us while they are suffering an attack, therefore in an emergency. In that case we can act as a bridge with the police, if they authorize us and while we wait for the intervention of the officers, we stay on the phone with the victim, we try to assist him remotely, we don’t leave him alone”.

In some periods, the 1522 switchboard receives up to 80 calls a day. «We always explain that the anti-violence center guarantees total privacy and the woman who asks for help is not obliged to do anything», continues Arianna Gentili. «It is a very powerful tool made available to women who suffer violence to start working on that part of themselves that makes us feel responsible in some way. Women don’t ask for help because culturally we have been taught that if we suffer violence we have done something, we are carrying out some behavior that causes this reaction. In anti-violence centers the objective is to read violence together from a social and cultural point of view, so as to develop the awareness that it is not a problem of women but that it is culturally a problem of men who commit violence to exercise a power that gives centuries and millennia they have exercised.”

Together with the anti-violence center, a path is designed for each woman to get out of her specific situation. «In serious cases, where there is a need to leave home for safety reasons, the anti-violence center creates a network with the shelters mapped in the area. For many women, fear is also caused by not knowing where to go after reporting. The idea is to create a network around the woman who is a victim of violence so that she no longer feels alone, because what allows violence to continue is the perception of loneliness.”

Sometimes those who call, in addition to relatives and friends who want to help someone they know, are also women who have already left their partner because he is violent. «In this case we also provide legal information on separation through ours legal desk. We also have experts in international law for migrant women and lawyers to protect workers.”

But the most complex step is often help the woman to recognize the violence she is suffering. «The perpetrator of violence is not always violent so moments of great violence alternate with moments of great serenity and the victim becomes attached to those moments. He thinks that if she changes her behavior then that positive aspect will prevail. It is not so. The great painful aspect is to realize that there is a cyclical nature that one does not want to change in those behaviors, that that person is both things and therefore it is extremely dangerous to remain close to him. The only thing possible is to interrupt that relationship for your own protection. It must be realized that those who suffer violence do nothing to provoke it.” Let’s repeat it: the victim of violence is never guilty.