Italy has criminalised femicide. So where's Scotland's Bella Epoch?

Congratulazioni to Italy, which has written femicide into its criminal law.

Because homicide just doesn’t cut it – not when we’re talking about endemic violence against half of the population, at the hands of that other half. 

A death is a death and a tragedy is a tragedy, but when we’re dealing with women killed by men – boyfriends, ex-husbands, strangers; men they are related to, have worked with, or just crossed paths with – we’re talking about a distinct class of offending, and one which is separate from other causes of violent death. 

And it’s one that’s written into our culture. Perhaps that’s why it can be so hard to face up to its realities. How often has a woman’s killer been portrayed as loving or devoted? A father who doted on his kids; an ex who couldn’t live without her. With this law, Italy hopes to write those narratives out of existence. “Talking of such crimes as rooted in exasperated love or strong jealousy is a distortion – that uses romantic, culturally acceptable terms,” said judge Paola di Nicola. The “real motivation of the perpetrators,” she said, is “hierarchy and power”.
No arguments there. 

The European Parliament considers violence against women a “violation of human rights and a serious form of discrimination”. It wants to see action by member states on both legislative and non-legislative measures to deal with the scourge.

But Italy is still unusual in its approach. Indeed, only three other EU member states have introduced a legal definition of femicide, with Mediterranean nations Cyprus and Malta doing so in 2022 and Balkan state Croatia following two years later. 

Which doesn’t mean that nothing is happening anywhere else – in Portugal, for example, sex is an aggravating factor in the killing of a woman. 

Italy’s law, which applies to killings committed as “an act of hatred, discrimination, domination, control, or subjugation of a woman as a woman”, or which takes place after a victim ends a relationship, carries a tariff of life imprisonment. It’s hoped that it will not only make such crimes visible but create cultural change. “Femicides will be classified, they will be studied in their real context, they will exist,” said di Nicola, who helped write the law.

It’s been backed by Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, whose ultra-conservative administration has been traduced by the left for its approach to equalities issues and whose Security Decree reforms drew vocal concerns from the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights. 

Much has been made of what has been described as Meloni’s brand of “law-and-order populism”. But this new measure – which is starkly contrasted with proposed restrictions on sex and relationships education in schools – won support from both the left and right of Italy’s lower chamber.

And it comes with a package of measures targeting crimes against women, including stalking and revenge porn. “We have doubled funding for anti-violence centres and shelters, promoted an emergency hotline, and implemented innovative education and awareness-raising activities,” said Meloni. “These are concrete steps forward, but we won’t stop here. We must continue to do much more, every day.”

The statistics bear that out. Italy is one of the lowest-ranked European countries in the Global Gender Gap Index, sitting at 85th, and of the 116 killings of women last year, 106 of these were said to have been linked to the victim’s sex. 

Scotland isn’t listed in that index, appearing instead under the UK’s entry (which is fourth, if you’re asking). But plans for a misogyny bill were dropped here earlier this year, with focus shifted to the inclusion of ‘sex’ in the existing Hate Crime Act. 

There was much discussion around the introduction of that legislation about why sex was not covered along with other factors like religion or sexuality – something Lord Bracadale described as a “missed opportunity”.

A consultation on adding ‘sex’ retrospectively closed in October, and we await the results. But, in a separate step, parliament unanimously backed the Criminal Justice Modernisation and Abusive Domestic Behaviour Reviews Act, which will see murders and suicides linked to harms at home examined by an expert panel to build up knowledge which can contribute to prevention efforts. 

Cases won’t only include incidences where women have died, with men and children also considered. But it’s expected that most will be about female deaths.

After all, almost half of Scottish women killed in 2024-25 had their lives ended by their partner or ex-partner – amounting to seven of 15 homicides. In fact, it was the most likely cause of death. In contrast, most men (19 out of 30), were killed by an acquaintance.

The case numbers are far lower than those recorded in Italy. But they took place against a backdrop of rising domestic abuse, with Police Scotland recording around 64,000 such crimes in 2023-24 in what was a three per cent year-on-year increase.

And so there’s much work to do to address harmful aspects of Scottish culture too. Neither nation has entered its bella epoch yet. Perhaps we can get there.