Secondary victimization in Italy. The urgent neend for judges, lawyers and court-appointed experts’ education on gender-based violence against women

The article focuses on secondary victimization in Italy, showing that judges, lawyers, and court-appointed experts handling cases of gender-based violence against women are often not specialized in the issue, consequently causing secondary victimization episodes. Indeed, they rely on sexist stereotypes, such as “the perfect victim” one. This tends to question the reliability of victims’ declarations, minimizing domestic violence as couple conflict, restraining from issuing precautionary measures and investigating the intimate life of the victims of sexual violence. Moreover, women are considered children’s manipulators through references to the PAS, while the victim-centered approach has a number of flaws, such as victim-partner meetings being organized without an appropriate risk assessment and the fact that achieving civil remedies and claiming compensation is complicated. The text examines secondary victimization through references to the 2020 GREVIO report, the 2018 Italian women’s NGOs report and two reports of the Italian Parliamentary Inquiry Committee on Feminicide. After an analysis of the progress and the criticalities of the Italian policies focused on secondary victimization, the lack of education on gender-based violence against women of judges, lawyers, and court-appointed experts’ is studied. Then, these professionals’ actions leading to secondary victimization are discussed, also referring to emblematic European Court of Human Rights judgments.