Time:
11/07/2019 - 10:35 to 11/07/2019 - 12:05
Room:
302d
Legal abortion in Italy and across Europe: what's going on? （義大利與歐洲的合法墮胎：發生什麼事？）
Type:
Proposal(Workshop / Presentation)
Coordinating organization:
D.i.Re Italy
Theme:
Policy and Legislation
Language:
English
Organization Name:
D.i.Re Donne in Rete Contro la violenza
Organization Introduction:
D.i.Re (Donne in Rete contro la violenza), the Italian National Women’s Network Against Violence, is the original and sole Italian network of independent Women’s Shelters and Women’s Centres (Centri Antiviolenza) managed by women's associations to promote the prevention of violence against women and to provide counselling and support services to women victims of violence.
The D.i.Re network includes almost eighty Women’s Shelters and Women’s Centres throughout Italy. This network has supported thousands of women for over thirty years, helping them to escape violence and build new lives.
Women’ s Shelters and Women’s Centres:
Women’s Shelters and Women’ Centres are places of security and support for women victims of violence. The majority are funded privately and partly with public funds, but some have too little funds to have both services and therefore can not run a shelter . Support services provided by D.i.Re are free of charge, guarantee anonymity and are available to all women.
What does a D.i.Re Women’s Shelters and Women’s Centres offer to women?
A woman who seeks help at a D.i.Re centre is not encouraged or obliged to report her situation to the police. Her free choice is always respected and she is offered the support and time necessary to rebuild her life and to pursue new and safe ways of living. Women’s Centres provide a wide range of support services and activities for women and their children. These services include shelters and counselling services, legal and psychological advice, support groups, workshops, awareness and prevention groups, data input and processing and career guidance. Our housing support programs include confidential addresses to ensure safe and secure accommodation during emergency periods.
Advocacy and public engagement:
D.i.Re cooperates with all public and private organisations, networks and institutions that are active in their work to prevent violence against women in Italy. D.i.Re also works at the international level to highlight the serious nature and extent of violence against women in Italy and the violence and injustice prevalent in broader Italian society.
D.i.Re initiates and participates in national and international projects that aim to stop violence against women and to empower women to escape from gender violence situations.
D.i.Re conducts training courses for shelter staff to consolidate and strengthen their practitioner skills and support and advocacy strategies. Our NGO is vigilant in its work to promote cultural change and to raise public and political awareness about the serious problem of violence against women in Italy.
International activities:
The D.i.Re international group pursues ongoing collaboration with European and worldwide associ-ations that are active in their work to prevent violence against women. This collaboration includes work to promote D.i.Re’s work at the international level and to highlight the extent and seriousness of violence against women in Italy.
In the European context, D.i.Re is the Italian focal point for WAVE: Women Against Violence Eu-rope, the umbrella association comprising 47 European countries. For over twenty years, D.i.Re has been an active participant at the annual WAVE Conference, collaborating in working groups, meet-ings and campaigns and contributing to Wave’s Country reports and its newsletter on the Italian sit-uation.
Since 2009, D.i.Re has been a member of the European Women’s Lobby (EWL). The D.i.Re interna-tional group is also keen to participate in the EWL European Observatory on violence against wom-en.
At the international level, D.i.Re is an active participant in the Global Network of Women’s Shelters (GNWS). GNWS was established in September 2008 during the first worldwide NGO conference of women’s shelters in Edmonton, Canada. D.i.Re delegates also attended the second GNWS Conference in Washington in 2012 and the third conference in Amsterdam in November 2015. D.i.Re contributes to the Global Shelter Data Count, along with 44 other countries.
D.i.Re also contributes to the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW, “Commission on the status of Women”, having gained in 2014 the status of ECOSOS as an NGO. D.i.Re cooperates with other Italian NGOs to prepare the Shadow Report for the CEDAW.
D.i.Re coordinates and promotes activities to change cultural and societal attitudes about violence against women in Italy. These activities aim to challenge dominant patriarchal notions of family and society, gender and sexuality and other dominant cultural values and power inequalities that exist in Italian society.
The D.i.Re network includes almost eighty Women’s Shelters and Women’s Centres throughout Italy. This network has supported thousands of women for over thirty years, helping them to escape violence and build new lives.
Women’ s Shelters and Women’s Centres:
Women’s Shelters and Women’ Centres are places of security and support for women victims of violence. The majority are funded privately and partly with public funds, but some have too little funds to have both services and therefore can not run a shelter . Support services provided by D.i.Re are free of charge, guarantee anonymity and are available to all women.
What does a D.i.Re Women’s Shelters and Women’s Centres offer to women?
A woman who seeks help at a D.i.Re centre is not encouraged or obliged to report her situation to the police. Her free choice is always respected and she is offered the support and time necessary to rebuild her life and to pursue new and safe ways of living. Women’s Centres provide a wide range of support services and activities for women and their children. These services include shelters and counselling services, legal and psychological advice, support groups, workshops, awareness and prevention groups, data input and processing and career guidance. Our housing support programs include confidential addresses to ensure safe and secure accommodation during emergency periods.
Advocacy and public engagement:
D.i.Re cooperates with all public and private organisations, networks and institutions that are active in their work to prevent violence against women in Italy. D.i.Re also works at the international level to highlight the serious nature and extent of violence against women in Italy and the violence and injustice prevalent in broader Italian society.
D.i.Re initiates and participates in national and international projects that aim to stop violence against women and to empower women to escape from gender violence situations.
D.i.Re conducts training courses for shelter staff to consolidate and strengthen their practitioner skills and support and advocacy strategies. Our NGO is vigilant in its work to promote cultural change and to raise public and political awareness about the serious problem of violence against women in Italy.
International activities:
The D.i.Re international group pursues ongoing collaboration with European and worldwide associ-ations that are active in their work to prevent violence against women. This collaboration includes work to promote D.i.Re’s work at the international level and to highlight the extent and seriousness of violence against women in Italy.
In the European context, D.i.Re is the Italian focal point for WAVE: Women Against Violence Eu-rope, the umbrella association comprising 47 European countries. For over twenty years, D.i.Re has been an active participant at the annual WAVE Conference, collaborating in working groups, meet-ings and campaigns and contributing to Wave’s Country reports and its newsletter on the Italian sit-uation.
Since 2009, D.i.Re has been a member of the European Women’s Lobby (EWL). The D.i.Re interna-tional group is also keen to participate in the EWL European Observatory on violence against wom-en.
At the international level, D.i.Re is an active participant in the Global Network of Women’s Shelters (GNWS). GNWS was established in September 2008 during the first worldwide NGO conference of women’s shelters in Edmonton, Canada. D.i.Re delegates also attended the second GNWS Conference in Washington in 2012 and the third conference in Amsterdam in November 2015. D.i.Re contributes to the Global Shelter Data Count, along with 44 other countries.
D.i.Re also contributes to the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW, “Commission on the status of Women”, having gained in 2014 the status of ECOSOS as an NGO. D.i.Re cooperates with other Italian NGOs to prepare the Shadow Report for the CEDAW.
D.i.Re coordinates and promotes activities to change cultural and societal attitudes about violence against women in Italy. These activities aim to challenge dominant patriarchal notions of family and society, gender and sexuality and other dominant cultural values and power inequalities that exist in Italian society.
Describe your workshop/presentation (300-500 words):
On May 22, 2019, 40 years have passed since the approval of the law 194/1978 in Italy, "Rules for the social protection of motherhood and voluntary interruption of pregnancy", the Italian law that governed the modalities of access to abortion.
Until 1975, the voluntary interruption of pregnancy (IVG), in any form, was considered by the Italian penal code a crime. The abortion was carried out in a clandestine manner and the discrimination was the social and economic class.
In 1975 a judgment of the Constitutional Court finally established the "difference" between an embryo and a human being and sanctioned the prevalence of the health of the mother than the life of the unborn.
In recent years, the Vatican hierarchy has intervened, continuously and deliberately, on the political scene in order to obtain what they have requested, so that it will be applied to the whole population. The Bishops also intervened so that the charter of the fundamental rights of the citizens of the European Union contained an article on "respect for the right to life from its beginning to its natural end", in order to make national laws on abortion and euthanasia illegal. The Catholic strategy is very simple: first of all, under the law on artificial insemination, the concept of "rights of the conceived" was passed. Thus a conflict has opened up with the articulation of 194, so that it could be "forced" to intervene also on this other law, to modify it in an obviously more restrictive sense, if not to abolish it.
Currently in Italy we have an average of 76% of object gynecologists and 49% of anesthesiologists, there are regions with 90% of objectors, on 94 structures with gynecology and obstetrics departments only in 62 we have the service for abortion on demand.
Two hundred thousand women protested in the streets in Italy on 26 November 2018, 2000 gathered in 8 thematic tables on the 27th in Rome claiming, with the women's strike of March 8th, the right to self-determination, because we decide on our bodies and we want free and safe abortion, guaranteed contraception and fight against obstetric violence.
In Italy and in Europe the most fundamentalist Catholic Right is re-emerging.
In Italy, the first signs have already occurred with the composition of the Government executive: what is at stake this Government are not equal opportunities between its citizens - and especially between men and women - but the support for a precise a so-called traditional family model, in which women may return to take care of the house.
Lorenzo Fontana was placed at the top of the ministry for the Family. Supporter of the existence of the phantom "gender theory" and above all a strenuous opponent of the right of women to interrupt the pregnancy. He is in fact enrolled in the Committee “No to194 law” which even proposes to introduce prison for women and doctors who practice abortions.
Until 1975, the voluntary interruption of pregnancy (IVG), in any form, was considered by the Italian penal code a crime. The abortion was carried out in a clandestine manner and the discrimination was the social and economic class.
In 1975 a judgment of the Constitutional Court finally established the "difference" between an embryo and a human being and sanctioned the prevalence of the health of the mother than the life of the unborn.
In recent years, the Vatican hierarchy has intervened, continuously and deliberately, on the political scene in order to obtain what they have requested, so that it will be applied to the whole population. The Bishops also intervened so that the charter of the fundamental rights of the citizens of the European Union contained an article on "respect for the right to life from its beginning to its natural end", in order to make national laws on abortion and euthanasia illegal. The Catholic strategy is very simple: first of all, under the law on artificial insemination, the concept of "rights of the conceived" was passed. Thus a conflict has opened up with the articulation of 194, so that it could be "forced" to intervene also on this other law, to modify it in an obviously more restrictive sense, if not to abolish it.
Currently in Italy we have an average of 76% of object gynecologists and 49% of anesthesiologists, there are regions with 90% of objectors, on 94 structures with gynecology and obstetrics departments only in 62 we have the service for abortion on demand.
Two hundred thousand women protested in the streets in Italy on 26 November 2018, 2000 gathered in 8 thematic tables on the 27th in Rome claiming, with the women's strike of March 8th, the right to self-determination, because we decide on our bodies and we want free and safe abortion, guaranteed contraception and fight against obstetric violence.
In Italy and in Europe the most fundamentalist Catholic Right is re-emerging.
In Italy, the first signs have already occurred with the composition of the Government executive: what is at stake this Government are not equal opportunities between its citizens - and especially between men and women - but the support for a precise a so-called traditional family model, in which women may return to take care of the house.
Lorenzo Fontana was placed at the top of the ministry for the Family. Supporter of the existence of the phantom "gender theory" and above all a strenuous opponent of the right of women to interrupt the pregnancy. He is in fact enrolled in the Committee “No to194 law” which even proposes to introduce prison for women and doctors who practice abortions.
All Speakers:
Name:
Silvia Menecali
Biography:
I'm Sociologist, expert on gender based violence and domestic abuse, with political and institutional experiences on gender policies and equal opportunities, and with experiences as anti-violence operator and in managing shelters and training on gender based violence. I'm a member of the International Group of the Italian network D.i.Re – donne in rete contro la violenza and, recently, I became an individual member of Wave - Women Against Violence Europe. I'm the co-StepUp’s Campaigner for Italy and member of two Wave’s working Groups (Strength Based Needs Led Approach; Protecting Women’s Specialist Services from
Gender Neutral Policy and Practice).
Gender Neutral Policy and Practice).
