Strasbourg Court condemns Italy: prosecutor justified rape with sexist stereotypes
The European Court of Human Rights has ordered the Italian state to compensate a French woman after a public prosecutor rejected her sexual violence accusations, arguing that it is "normal" for men to overcome the resistance of women who are "tired".
Strasbourg Court condemns Italy: prosecutor justified rape with sexist stereotypes
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has condemned Italy to pay compensation to a French national woman, whose sexual violence complaint against her ex-partner had been dismissed by a magistrate who justified the decision with sexist statements. The Guardian reported this.
According to what emerged, the public prosecutor had considered it difficult to establish whether rape had occurred, since the man was unaware that his partner had not consented to the sexual relations. The magistrate had written that it is "normal that men must overcome that minimal resistance which every woman is inclined to offer when, tired by the hardships of daily life, a man initiates a sexual approach".
The ECHR ruled that such observations reinforced sexist stereotypes, trivialised sexual violence and had exposed the victim to further secondary trauma. The court also found that the public prosecutor — and the Italian judicial system as a whole — had not ensured a swift, thorough and effective investigation, as required by law in cases of domestic violence.
The matter dates back to April 2021, when Audrey Ubeda, who lived with her Italian partner in the Avellino area of Campania, filed a complaint with the police. The woman claimed she had been physically and psychologically mistreated by the man, as well as raped multiple times. She had also reported that her partner had pointed a knife at her throat in front of two witnesses, threatening that her story would make front page news in the newspapers, like other femicides.
In the same year, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation requested that the case be dismissed. The knife threat was described as a "bad joke", whilst the physical assaults against the children were justified as disciplinary acts falling within the exercise of parental authority.
Eventually the dismissal request was rejected and the case was assigned to a new magistrate. The man was committed for trial and in the first instance was sentenced to four and a half years' imprisonment. The defendant has appealed the sentence and is currently at liberty pending trial.
The ECHR has ordered the Italian state to pay approximately 60,000 euros in compensation to Ubeda and her two children, who spent three years living in a protected facility. The court found that the authorities had violated the prohibition on inhuman and degrading treatment of domestic violence victims, among other things by not adopting adequate measures such as assigning them a family home and not authorising their request for transfer to France.
Audrey Ubeda told the Italian press that the ruling represents "justice" and a "victory for all women". The woman also expressed surprise upon learning that the prosecutor who authored the contested reasoning was a woman. "When my lawyer explained to me that someone in a robe had cleared my ex-partner on the grounds that a man must overcome a woman's resistance in order to have sexual relations, I felt wounded again. It was particularly shocking to discover that these words had been spoken by a female prosecutor," she told the newspaper La Repubblica.
Source: Telex