Sarah Rainsford

So whilst Italian law and international law has the crime of homicide, from the word for man, femicide is distinctly about the murder of a woman because of her gender, so motivated by her gender.

And this law has very specific parameters.

Essentially, it's about defining a very specific crime, which is murdering a woman and

as an act of control, as an act of domination, as an act of subjugation, and so specifically because she's a woman.

There's been quite a lot of discussion about the issue of gender violence in Italy for some time.

I have to say it's quite interesting.

I'm quite new to Italy.

And I noticed we have the TV on in the office and on the 24-hour news channel here, I kept seeing the word femicide on the screen.

And there was an awful lot in the headlines about the murder of women.

And I started to think that Italy was like an incredibly dangerous place to be as a female because it was so often so prevalent in the headlines.

But it comes from a discussion that's some years old, but I think really caught the national headlines a couple of years ago with one woman.

very high profile murder, which was the murder of a woman, a young student called Julia Cheketin, who was killed almost exactly two years ago by her ex-partner.

So a boy that she had broken up with.

They were both students at university.

He wanted to get back with her.

He was very possessive, very jealous, very persistent.

And ultimately, he killed her.

The man was called Filippo Toretto, and he committed this horrific, horrific murder, a very violent attack.

And then he went on the run.

And I think that's probably, you know, to explain why it captured the, I suppose, the nation so much.