Violence against Women: Assessing Italy’s Compliance with the osce Commitments and the Current International Legal Framework

Abstract

Violence against women (vaw) represents a phenomenon that over the past decade has reached an unprecedented level in Italy. As a result this topic has been included amongst the key issues addressed by the Independent Evaluation Report on the occasion of the Italian osce Chairmanship 2018. Relying and building on the study conducted by this author in order to contribute to the Report, the present article provides an overview of the key findings of the research, discussing how and to what extent Italy’s approach is in line with the osce commitments on vaw. This article aims at pointing out existing weaknesses and strengths of the Italian legal and policy framework as well as at identifying possible ways forward to bolster Italy’s compliance with the osce commitments and the existing international and regional standards.