News from Italy
Italia paid homage to the many women killed
Palazzo Chigi and Palazzo Madama illuminated in red for the women
Vita gazette – November 25 is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. And Italy paid homage to the many women killed too. Chigi palace was illuminated in red on the occasion of the International day against violence against women. A gesture, a message of solidarity and closeness, while the names of the 104 women who have been victims of violence so far this year scrolled across the façade.
Palazzo Chigi, Palazzo Madama and other palazzos are illuminated in red which is the symbol of the Day against violence and the names that are many, too many, of the women killed in the last year are projected in an initiative that has been called “Let’s light them up”
The government, starting with the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, at the end of the Council of Ministers, came out in piazza Colonna, in front of Chigi palace illuminated in red on the occasion of the International day against violence against women. A gesture, a message of solidarity and closeness, while the names of the 104 women who have been victims of violence so far this year scrolled across the façade.
The initiative was announced by the Minister of the Family, Birth Rate and Equal Opportunities, Eugenia Maria Roccella: “Palazzo Chigi will be illuminated in red which is the symbol of the Day against violence and the names that are many, too many, of the women killed in the last year will be projected in an initiative that has been called “Let’s light them up”
When was this day born and why was it established?
The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women was established on 17 December 1999 by the United Nations General Assembly to remember all victims of gender-based violence around the world. The date chosen, November 25, is not accidental: it is the day on which the Mirabal sisters, Patria Mercedes, María Argentina Minerva, and Antonia María Teresa, were killed in Malcedo, in the Dominican Republic, in 1960. The three women were political activists and were massacred for their struggles against the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. With 2022 we count twenty-three years since the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women was established, and although a lot of time has passed, this anniversary is still painfully necessary.
Why red shoes are the symbol of November 25th
The history of red shoes begins in 2009, when the artist Elina Chauvet places 33 pairs of women’s shoes in the square of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, all different, but all red: this is how the “Zapateos Rojos” installation was born. Chauvet’s idea was born from the need to denounce the rampant phenomenon of femicide, but also to remember her sister, killed by her husband when she was only twenty. Since then, they have become the symbol of the fight against femicide, mistreatment, disappearances, and all kinds of gender-based violence; the date of November 25 found in red shoes a strong image to associate with the fight against gender-based violence and the memory of all its victims.