A major femicide trial has opened in Italy after the brutal murder of a university student that triggered outrage and national soul-searching over the roots of male violence against women.
The stabbing in November of Giulia Cecchettin, 22, a biomedical engineering student at the University of Padua, cast a grim spotlight on femicide in Italy, where the vast majority of victims are killed at the hands of their current or former partners.
The accused, her ex-boyfriend Filippo Turetta, 22, did not appear in the Venice courtroom on Monday.
But Turetta, who risks life in prison, has previously confessed before a judge to the murder of Cecchettin.
With the prosecution and defence deciding not to call witnesses, the court decided that the verdict should be handed down on 3 December.
According to official statistics, a woman is killed every three days in Italy, a majority-Catholic country where traditional gender roles still hold sway and where sexist behaviour by men is often downplayed.
Cecchettin, who was due to graduate just days after her death, was reported missing on 11 November after accompanying Turetta to a mall and never returning home.
After video cameras near Cecchettin’s home revealed images of Turetta attacking her violently before fleeing with her in his car, police launched a week-long manhunt.
Her body was found on 18 November in a gully near Lake Barcis, about 75 miles (120km) north of Venice. Her head and neck were punctured with over 70 stab wounds, according to media reports citing the autopsy.
Turetta was arrested a day later on the side of the road near Leipzig, Germany, after his car ran out of petrol.
Marking what activists hoped would be a turning point, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across Italian cities on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, calling for cultural change.
Cecchettin’s sister, Elena, has denounced the “patriarchy” and “rape culture” that she says is prevalent in Italian society.
“Rape culture is what legitimises every behaviour that goes to harm the figure of the woman, starting with the things that sometimes are not even given importance such as control, possessiveness, catcalling,” Elena Cecchettin wrote in the Il Corriere della Sera daily after her sister’s death.
At Cecchettin’s funeral in Padua, her father, Gino, called for his daughter’s death to be a “turning point to end the terrible scourge of violence against women”, imploring men to “challenge the culture that tends to minimise violence by men who appear normal”.
As Turetta waived his right to a preliminary hearing after his confession, the proceedings are expected to be relatively brief.
He faces charges including voluntary manslaughter aggravated by premeditation and kidnapping, and others related to stalking and hiding Cecchettin’s body.
Excerpts of Turetta’s questioning before a judge on 1 December were broadcast last week on the television programme Quarto Grado in which he is seen admitting his responsibility, saying that he attacked Ceccettin after she told him she wanted to break off the relationship.
According to the interior ministry, 120 women were murdered in Italy last year, of whom 97 were killed by family members or current or former partners.
Comparisons with other European countries are difficult due to inconsistent data, but the issue has recently also risen to prominence in various European countries.
After Cecchettin’s death, Italy’s parliament adopted a package of bills to strengthen existing laws to protect women, but activists say cultural change requires much more, starting with compulsory education on the topic in schools.
A July 2021 report from the government’s department of gender equality found that “in some regions of Italy up to 50% of men consider violence in relationships to be acceptable”.