Violence against women. Stories of daily violence collected by the Telefono Rosa (1992)

The results presented in this research are the outcome of the collaboration between the Institute and the Telefono Rosa Voluntary Association. There are at least 12,000 families in Italy in which acts of violence against women are perpetrated on a daily basis. In most cases, the violence takes place within the family-marital context. Blackmail, threats and beatings are almost always perpetrated within the domestic environment. This type of violence, which is not always identified with sexual harassment and aggression, appears rather as an underlying condition of a certain conjugal living. The victim of the violence is usually a housewife, married, with children, aged between 25-40 years: exactly the figure that should paradoxically represent the symbol of a happy Italian society. Instead, this woman, often a victim of conjugal-family violence, complains about psychological problems, loneliness and depression.