There has been much discussion in recent months about the new bill on sexual violence, which seeks to "update" legislation dating back to 1996, with the aim of identifying and defining the crime of sexual violence and its punitive response. This is a strictly legal approach to developing sanctions, completely alien to feminist and transfeminist action and the prospect of social transformation. ---- The issue of violence and the rape culture that fuels it is central to the fight against patriarchy and sexism, and legislative action certainly does not provide solutions-quite the opposite. However, considering the path this bill has taken in recent months is interesting for understanding how institutional policy uses the issue of sexual violence and how the punitive response to sexual abuse is developed at the legislative level.
Since 2011, the Istanbul Convention has recognized consent as a fundamental element in determining whether or not a situation constitutes sexual violence and requires signatory states to criminalize sexual acts performed without consent. Despite having signed the Convention in 2013, Italy has never amended its legislation. To avoid incurring the penalties already imposed on Romania and Bulgaria, Italy has therefore decided to revise the 1996 law.
Last November, the Chamber of Deputies approved a bipartisan bill, agreed upon by the majority and the opposition, which amended Article 609 of the Criminal Code by introducing the term "free and actual consent," meaning consent expressed without conditions and maintained for the entire duration of the relationship. Without these characteristics, the sexual act is considered rape. This change is significant, given the centrality attributed to consent.
This all came to a very short end. The bipartisan agreement, born for obvious window dressing just a week before November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, quickly collapsed miserably. Right-wing parties, led by the League, began to fret, fearing scant guarantees for rape defendants. They raised the risk of a reversal of the burden of proof, and invoked the principle of due process, which never applies to other defendants. In December, Bongiorno withdrew from the bipartisan agreement and announced she wanted to remove the adjectives "free and current" and replace it with "recognizable." This was a significant shift in perspective, removing two qualifying adjectives and relativizing the concept of consent. According to this perspective, consent must be expressed in a certain way and must be of a quality that makes it recognizable to those seeking sexual intercourse. The rapist must be protected because he could have been inattentive at the time, perhaps had a hearing problem, and in that case nothing can be blamed; he simply didn't understand that there was no consent. In short, the trial will judge not the rapist's violent behavior, but the quality and effectiveness of the consent expressed by the victim.
It was December, and criticisms and protests immediately arose. The opposition saw not only the bipartisan agreement fading, but also the issue slipping away, and so it attempted to regain prominence with an absolutely insane compromise proposal, made in early January, even within the Institutional Commission, by the Democratic Party and its ilk: remove every adjective and leave only consent. In other words: who cares if the consent isn't free, if it was extorted or manipulated? Who cares if perhaps they later changed their minds and no longer wanted to carry out a sexual act imposed by someone else? The important thing is that the term exists, even if it's empty, and that we can take credit for aligning ourselves with the Istanbul Convention.
But Lega Nord member Bongiorno, also strengthened by the opposition's disarray, completely distanced herself from the bipartisan agreement and drafted another text, approved on January 28 by the Senate Justice Committee. The issue was completely reversed; the term "consent" disappeared, replaced by "contrary will." In practice, anyone taking legal action for rape will have to demonstrate that they have clearly expressed their opposition. Dissent instead of consent.
When it comes to establishing rape, the difference is enormous. Emphasizing the presence of consent means that anyone wishing to engage in sexual activity must verify the other person's consent and not assume their willingness. Reversing the issue and focusing on dissent, on the other hand, means assuming the sexual willingness of the victim. The victim must demonstrate that they clearly expressed their opposition or the reason for their refusal, which will then be examined: was she drunk? How drunk? Was she blackmailed, threatened, or subservient? Was she paralyzed by fear? How can this be proven? To argue that violence occurred, the woman, like any abused individual, must demonstrate that she resisted and did so effectively. According to the Bongiorno Bill, it is up to her to know how to manage a violent relationship, even if she finds herself in an unequal situation, even if she is afraid, threatened, blackmailed, or even if she lacks awareness. Men can easily continue to believe that a woman's body is at their disposal; millennia of patriarchy allow it, and the law of their ancestors confirms it.
Unfortunately, we have already seen this in courtrooms and have repeatedly denounced it as institutional violence, as rape culture.
To reject the Bongiorno bill, street protests and various initiatives immediately erupted, launched by NonUnaDiMeno, various collectives, and anti-violence centers.
However, those who, in a completely incongruous manner, also took action were the institutional sectors of the opposition parties, the same ones who had irresponsibly removed the qualifying adjectives from the word "consensus." These sectors, supported by the ever-present CGIL union apparatus and the Rete D.i.Re network, also launched public initiatives in February.
It took a great effort to avoid annoying and unacceptable exploitation and to give the March 8th demonstrations the strong transfeminist character that has marked almost a decade of struggle, with a comprehensive analysis and anti-institutional action that placed systemic violence and rape culture at the center.
It wasn't easy (and not everywhere successful), also because there's an intermediary world-that of institutional anti-violence centers and large-scale anti-violence networks, like D.i.Re.-which in some areas moves with ease between ministerial offices, institutions, and movements. It wasn't easy, but we did it. And now is the time to intensify the mobilizations.
The outcome of the referendum at the end of March prompted the right-wing government to temporarily ease back on at least some issues, deemed evidently less urgent and at the same time unpopular, such as the rape bill, which had sparked much and strong protest. The bill's progress has thus undergone a change. Instead of proceeding directly to the Senate floor, where approval was scheduled for April 8th, Bongiorno deemed it appropriate to create a select committee and make some institutional arrangements with the opposition. Evidently, the government majority, in the immediate aftermath of the referendum defeat, momentarily overestimated an opposition that, on this and other issues, foolishly toyed with the advantage gained from the referendum, squandering it in its characteristic inertia, the result of a lack of interest in even the slightest change, further demonstrating opportunism and incompetence. As the days passed, the right quickly realized there was little to fear. At the first session of the select committee on the rape bill, the opposition found itself alone in the trap of dialogue with the fascists set by Bongiorno, who didn't even show up for that meeting.
This is the paltry manner in which the institutions have treated the bill that should identify and punish violence through legal channels. An undignified exercise that has exploited the concept of consensus in a superficial and instrumental manner: the government opposition supported it purely for political visibility, but has demonstrated its view of it as a meaningless term; while the majority has opposed consensus to the point of eliminating it from the text, to emphasize the macho and sexist identitarianism so dear to fascists.
For us, consensus is something else entirely, and it's time to continue the fight, making it clear to those who still had some faith in the institutional solution and those who trusted in the miraculous powers of the "no" referendum that on this, as on so many other issues, there are other paths to follow. For us, consensus is not an empty term.
The feminist and transfeminist movement has built debates, insights, but also experiments and experiences around the concept of consent, with the collective intent of breaking the rape culture that signifies possession, abuse, and the right of men to believe that bodies are always at their disposal. Breaking this sexist and patriarchal culture, educating and educating ourselves about consent, is difficult. It requires complex work, a profound cultural shift, supported by a social perspective that must be radically different from the current one. This is precisely what we must continue to fight for, against and beyond the Bongiorno bill. Because a bad law certainly won't stop the transfeminist struggle.
Consent is a practice to be cultivated, to be adopted in all relationships, not just sexual ones, but also in more general relational modalities. It is also a way of discussing without prevarication, of making decisions without majority opinion, of relating interpersonally and collectively, freeing ourselves from hierarchy. Consent is a conscious and safe way of having sex, but also a conscious and safe way of being in the world and concretely thinking about a different world.
Patrizia Nesti
https://umanitanova.org/il-senso-del-consenso-ddl-stupri-rilanciare-le-lotte-oltre-ogni-strumentalizzazione/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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