http://www.lifeinitaly.com/news/news-detailed.asp?newsid=7710

A disturbing article on so many levels. First there is the raging xenophobia, that somehow foreigners automatically bring evil into a supposedly stable environment. Not so. Crime usually exists there already, although it may be unspoken. (By the way, that's just as prevalent here in America.)

Also, these numbers also seem to mirror America's. I do not have the exact numbers in front of me but I think statistically this reflects similar crimes in the U.S., where more women are raped by dates, boyfriends, relatives, even their husbands, than by strangers.

I'm glad Italy is publicly acknowledging this. That seems an important first step.

I am actually repeting the article because it got me even more worried : ( please read the correct title )

(ANSA) - Rome, December 10 - Italian men commit far more
rapes in Italy than foreigners do, the director of the
national statistics institute, Istat, said on Monday.
Addressing a United Nations-backed conference on gender
statistics, Linda Laura Sabbadini said foreign men were
responsible for just 10% of rapes committed Italy.
She also noted that in the vast majority of cases, 69%,
the rapist is the victim's partner.
''Yet the image we have is of women being attacked on the
street by immigrants,'' she said.
Istat's director said there were similar misconceptions
about general physical violence on women, pointing out that
most serious attacks take place in the home.
''However, this is not the situation portrayed in the
media,'' she said.
According to Sabbadini, statistics have a crucial role
to play in undermining such media stereotypes and helping
address the real issue.
''Failing to take into consideration the available
statistics can result in mistakes in terms of policy
direction and priorities,'' she explained.
The issue of immigrant crime has been in Italian
headlines for weeks, with reports of a crime wave involving
foreigners.
The most notorious case saw a Romanian charged with the
murder and attempted rape of a 47-year-old Italian woman,
resulting in an emergency decree for the expulsion of
potentially dangerous foreigners.
Monday's conference, the Global Forum on Gender
Statistics, also spotlighted the importance of fighting
inbuilt discrimination in collecting and collating
statistics.
While ethnicity, age, sexual orientation and disability
are categories often discriminated against in data
collection, said Sabbadini, gender remains the most serious
factor.
''Studies have shown that whenever there is ethnic or age
discrimination, for example, this is usually also accompanied
by gender bias - a kind of double discrimination,'' she
explained.
As part of a general policy to improve women's lot in
Italy, the government is working closely with Istat to
eliminate gender bias in statistics gathering.
Equal Opportunities Undersecretary Donatella Linguiti
explained: ''We need statistics that take into account sexual
difference, allowing us to publicize the specific problems
facing women. This is the only way we can design effective
gender policies and monitor the actual results''.

Stephanie: As bad as the situation above is it is nothing considering what it is happening in other countries:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7106234.stm
You must be aware of the case where a rape victim was condemned:

Saudis back rape victim sentence

Saudi women are not allowed to mingle with unrelated men
Authorities in Saudi Arabia have defended a judicial sentence of 200 lashes for a rape victim.
The justice ministry said in a statement that the sentence was justified because the woman was in a car with an unrelated man.
The case has aroused controversy at home and condemnation abroad.
US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton said the sentence was an outrage and urged President Bush to put pressure on Saudi King Abdullah.
The 19-year-old, who has not been named, was travelling in a car with a male friend last year, when the car was attacked by a gang of seven men who raped both of them.
The has become known as the "Qatif girl", a reference to the largely Shia town which she comes from.
Four of the men were convicted of kidnapping - but the court also sentenced the woman and her friend to receive 90 lashes each for the crime of "illegal mingling".
Last week the court increased the woman's sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison.
It also banned her lawyer from the courtroom and took away his licence.

Ps In this countrie you cannot even have statistics : How can you have statistics in this cases? Most of this crimes, you bet, in many countries will be unreported

Actually I cut and pasted the title of this thread straight from the article. (see my link) I should have put quotes around it.

Paolo, I agree with you! I think that while Italy's numbers are eye-opening, the country is taking some very welcomed public steps in combating this. (Didn't the government also recently announce it was waging a war against domestic violence?) Italy is becoming very progressive regarding women's rights. It makes me even prouder of my heritage.

And yes, I know of, and have been following, the incident in Saudi Arabia. I think Senator Clinton was right to speak out against this. There are human rights organizations that try to keep a tally of what's happening - Amnesty International is a very good watchdog group - but as you rightly pointed out, it's difficult at best.

"Startling figures suggest female rapes have soared in the UK in recent years, going up 27% in the last year alone. Are so many more women really being attacked? Or is there another story behind the statistics?
There were 11,441 recorded rapes last year, according to latest police figures.
This compares to 8,990 the year before - and 6,281 when Labour came to power in 1997, a rise of 82%." (source BBC news 2003)


"In 2005/06, there were a total of 13,331 recorded offences of rape of a female. This represents an increase of three per cent from the previous year." (source UK Home Office Crime Statistics)

"According to a news report on BBC1 channel presented in 12 November 2007, there were 85000 women raped in UK last year or about 230 cases everyday. This means according to the report that one of every 200 women in UK was raped last year. The report also showed that 800 persons only were convicted in rape crimes that year." (source wikipedia)

I could go on quoting figures, but the interesting point is the difference between the 85000 women raped and the 13,331 recorded offences. The big problem is getting women to come forward because the majority of women are raped by people they know, boyfriends, work colleagues, husbands etc.

I hope the steps the Italian government are taking really work. When I was a policeman in London I arrested a man for raping a prostitute. The girl wasn't working at the time and was dragged into some garages where he pulled up her skirt, ripped her panties off and inserted some scissors into her vagina saying that he would cut her if she didn't consent. Luckily people heard her screams and called the police. I arrived with some colleagues and caught him in the act. The case went to court but the girl never showed up. The judge gave us time to find her, but when we did she refused to appear because her pimp threatened to kill her. Obviously the case didn't go ahead and the rapist was free to go. I still feel guilty that despite doing my job, the system wasn't there for her, so I sincerely hope that Italy deals with this issue properly.

While I don't want to monopolize the thread, I do want to just say thank you, Sardoman, for stepping in when you did. It was a good thing that you were there.

Folks, don't always believe the media hype. It's there for a reason. Anything the UN comes out with, I say: beware. Anything any of the italian newspapers are telling you, beware (either liberal or conservative). Here they say the divorce rate is 50%? And why? To perpetuate the belief system that America is breaking down and people can't stay together. It's the same in Italy: If you believe that italian men rape women more than immigrants (especially the illegal ones) then your heart will soften toward the immigrant system -- the government which is allowing them to stay --- you will begin to look at your own people more suspiciously if you take everything to heart that you read. Or you may not. Do you really honestly believe that the italian bureaucrazy is taking diligent notes on who is getting raped and by whom? do you believe that? I don't.
I am not against immigrants per se but I am absolutely against the governments in this world who are allowing it and causing the citizens to foot the bill. From what I hear Italy is crowded with immigrants since I was last there - from Milan to Rome.

Linda Laura Sabbadini said foreign men were
responsible for just 10% of rapes committed Italy.


Pls be carefull reading statistics... they are responsible for "just" 10% of rapes committed in Italy?? Well, they are also JUST the 4% of the population living here...

Pls be carefull reading statistics... they are responsible for "just" 10% of rapes committed in Italy?? Well, they are also JUST the 4% of the population living here...

You're absolutely correct that we should always question the answer. (At least, that's how the last few posts.) There are hidden agendas behind the numbers. It's a sad fact that there are no news sources or government agencies that are completely objective anymore. (If they ever were.)

My question: Is this story more an issue of runaway immigration or the negative stereotyping of the Italian man? (Or the recognition of better women's rights in Italy?)

My question: Is this story more an issue of runaway immigration or the negative stereotyping of the Italian man? (Or the recognition of better women's rights in Italy?)

The UK Home Office Crime Statistics numbers are usually massaged to appear better than they really are! Any number above 0 is not acceptable, no matter what the figures say.

I think the story shows a variety of things. The recent problem over immigrants committing crimes, Italian men being portrayed in a less romantic light, more women coming forward when they have been raped and greater coverage by the media. It all makes bad reading but provided it helps women in the long run then we should read about it.

On the Spanish news in California yesterday they announced that women in Mexico City now have their own buses because the Mexican men were touching them too much on public buses in Mexico City.
It's a shame that women have to go through this. But all this is pale compared to what's happening in the Mexican city of Juaraz that is on the border of the U.S. Rich people from the U.S. own companies in Juarez that pay women low wages and don't protect them from rapists and murders.

Men Killing Women In Juarez, Mexico, With Impunity
Women run a gauntlet from the maquiladoras to the slums where they live. For many women, the greatest crime is official neglect. Whether it is a demented serial killer or an angry husband, a woman's killer in Mexico is likely to live on in freedom.

"I think there are 200 or 300 men out there who have killed women"

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico -
The most famous investigator in northern Mexico comes into her office, an hour late. Suly Ponce is special prosecutor in one of North America's biggest serial murder cases - six years of killing sprees that has claimed 182 women's lives in Ciudad Juarez.

Which may be why so few people in this, the most picturesque of Mexican border cities, take her seriously. The 35-year-old lawyer is considered a political flunky, a lightweight who got the job of ending the gruesome Juarez murders because of her close ties to the attorney-general of Chihuahua states. "Frivolous," is how one of the city's leading activists, Esther Chavez Cano, describes her. "This city is in constant violence," says Ms. Chavez, who runs Juarez's Rape Crisis Centre.

The critisms matter little to Ms. Ponce. She says she has cracked the murder mystery and put a group of men who were responsible behind bars. Juarez, she says confidently, is once again "a safe city for women".

Such conviction has alternately bewildered and infuriated women's groups, who believe the killings have not stopped. In addition to a serial killer, perhaps several, whom they believe are at large, there are any numbers of other attackers, products of Juarez's geography and macho culture.

Most of Juarez's female victims came from another place, drawn to the city by its flourishing maquiladoras, the export-processing zones that create up to 30,000 jobs a year. The factory workers are paid better and enjoy safer working conditions than they would almost anywhere else in Mexico, but at the end of each shift they must run a gauntlet of danger and sexual harassment back to the teeming slums where most of them live.

Many of the murder suspects also come from elsewhere, attracted to Juarez by its bright economic lights and then frustrated by the fact that no one gets rich, unless they're part of its $10-billion-a-year narcotis cartel.

A long stone's throw across the Rio Grande from Texas and New Mexico, the Mexican boomtown remains the model of machismo in a New World setting.

When the serial murders first emerged, local police blamed the victims for wearing short skirts and makeup, even though Ms. Chavez found the 74 per cent of the murdered women were wearing trousers. Downtown, strip joints line the main street, and only men seem to walk freely, usually in cowboy hats, jeans, and stretched corduroy shirts that make most of them look like overweight Mexican Marlboro men.

In overcrowded, ramshackled shantytowns cut into rock and dirt, gunfights are routine. Even in well-heeled restaurants, where assassinations are not uncommon, diners are advised not to sit with their backs to a door or window.

Narco-traficantes are celebrated in local music, as are narco-murders, the slaying of small-time traffickers and turncoats who run into the hundreds every year.

For many women, though, the greatest crime is official neglect. Whether it is a demented serial killer or an angry husband, a woman's killer in Mexico is likely to live on in freedom.

"I think there are 200 or 300 men out there who have killed women," says Ms. Chavez. "There's impunity, so it's attractive. It's easy to do. There is no law to protect women."

The dangers for Juarez's women are known all too well to 22-year-old Guillerma Gonzalez Torres, a former maquila worker. Her younger sister, Sagrario, was killed in April 1998 - raped, strangled and stabbed five times - on her way home from the morning shift at a General Electric factory, where she worked alongside her father and five sisters.

After the 17-year-old's body was found in the desert, two weeks after she disappeared, Ms. Gonzalez left the maquilas and former her own organization, Voices Without Echo, to campaign for justice. She said she has yet to see it.

"The cases we took up have not progressed one inch in terms of the investigation," Ms. Gonzalez says, sitting in her family's small house in the hills outside Juarez, overlooking the Rio Grande. "When we went to police as individuals, they accused the victims of acting irresponsibly. They said the victims did wrong things, like going out dancing at night. I can say in my sister's case, that is absolutely false. She did not know what the inside of a nightclub looked like."

Juarez's extraordinary violence is of great interest north of the border, to FBI agents and criminologists such as Candice Skrapec, who has been assisting Chihuahua officials in their investigations.

Research by the Calgary-born Ms. Skrapec, who is an expert at California State University, shows that of the 182 recorded victims, as many as 75 were sexually assaulted before their death. More than 30 were raped and killed by a group of three or four independent serial killers, she believes.

Over the last six years, Juarez has been rocked by a series of grotesque killings of women, an average of two a month. Scores were abducted while going home from work and taken to the badlands outside the city, where they were raped and strangled with belts, ropes, and shoelaces.

Some had their breasts slashed. A few were found tortured with sticks or poles. Several corpses were mutilated with acid or burning tires, and left to hungry coyotes.

The most bizarre theory behind some of the killings involves an Egyptian immigrant, Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif. Mexican police last March arrested four Juarez bus drivers and a narcotics trafficker and charged them with killing young women on behalf of Mr. Sharif - who is accused of ordering the murders by phone from his prison cell.