We must fight for rape victims to have the courage to report and be protected. Only then can we hope to prevent stories like this from becoming mere statistics in a sea of ignored violence.
Student Commentary
By Sofia Faid / Contributor || Edited by Annalucia Scotto di Clemente
This article addresses gender violence and may be distressing and triggering.
When you are 13 years old, you should only worry about doing well in middle school, having fun with your friends, and awkwardly chatting with your crush; you should not be scared to go on a walk with your boyfriend, nor be scared to be attacked by seven men. Unfortunately, this is the tragic story of a 13-year-old girl, who was raped by two men while the other five held her boyfriend back.
The horrible attack happened on Jan. 30 in Catania, Sicily, where the couple was dragged into the public baths of Villa Bellini. The girl was courageous enough to report the incident immediately. The police identified and arrested all the perpetrators, some of whom were minors.
Despite stories of rape unfortunately happening too often, this story in particular received a lot of media attention. And instead of advocating for abused women, instead of demanding a change in our patriarchal society, instead of fighting rape culture, the media used this girl’s traumatic story to fuel the already existing racism in this country.
In particular, the daily newspaper “La Verità” has promoted the harmful myth that 40 percent of rapes in Italy are committed by foreigners. This statistic has been proven wrong by the National Institute of Statistics (Istat); the fact-checking site Pagella Politica reports that 80% of the time Italian women are raped by Italian men.
Certain politicians and media outlets don’t seem to cover as much the cases of sexual assault when they involve Italian nationals, but they do exhaust coverage and headlines on stories that will serve an anti-migration agenda.
Since 2022, when the right-wing party Fratelli d’Italia won the elections, many anti-immigration laws have been proposed, such as narrowing asylum rights and allowing the authorities to hold people in pre-deportation detention centers for a maximum of 18 months.
The Italian Minister of Agriculture for Fratelli d’Italia, Francesco Lollobrigida, who is also brother-in law of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, expressed his “concern” that Italy is at risk of “ethnic replacement,” further promoting systematic racism in the country.
So when the police reported on Feb. 4 that the perpetrators of the 13-year old girl in Catania are of Egyptian origin, Matteo Salvini, former Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the right-wing political party, Lega, known for its anti-immigration policies, jumped at the chance to feed his dangerous narratives that depict migrants as scary creatures that come to our country to destroy our peace. Salvini received wide coverage in the media when asking for the chemical castration of the convicted perpetrators on his X (Twitter) account.
In fact, Salvini used this story to promote his party’s law proposal of chemical castration for those convicted of sexual assault and pedophilia. This law proposal is not only completely absurd and barbaric, but it does nothing to prevent sexual assault. Instead of advocating for women’s rights and against rape culture, it implies this issue is one of personal responsibility, it puts the focus back on the perpetrator, and ignores the underlying issues.
Focusing on the abusers instead of the victims and survivors will not help fighting rape culture, and if we do not do anything, this girl’s story will soon be one of other billion like this. We must become more critical of the media we are consuming, and we must stop it from manipulating us into believing racist and damaging stereotypes.
Our fight must not end until every woman and girl will live in an equal and safe society. We must fight so that this girl’s story is the last one.
Suggested Readings
The Reporting system that sexual assault survivors want
Migration and sexual abuse in Italy: inside a toxic news cycle
thematthewrome.com 