Today commemorates all women who have been victims of violence and murder by men. In Italy feminicide is a particularly touchy subject since, on average, one woman is murdered every seventy-two hours by males. In most cases the murderer is someone known to the victim, in particular a husband, an ex or a boyfriend; the excuse given by the assassin for taking the life of someone who once loved him is that ‘she’ left him as if ‘she’ was an object, a chattel he owned and would never let anyone else have alive. Sadly, in so many countries a woman is, indeed, legally still a chattel; no more so than in martyred Afghanistan where that country’s women’s football team has recently flown to safety in Portugal and escape from the wrath of the new Taliban government who clearly have devastating problems regarding women.

In Italy much has been done to raise male consciousness regarding the issue of violence to women since the days when murderers here got more lenient sentences by invoking the plea that their crime was one of ‘honour’… Today most towns and villages in the peninsula have red benches dedicated to victims of feminicide. Bagni Di Lucca’s public garden hosts one in memory of a victim shot by a jealous lover just outside the doctor’s surgery there and a more recent red bench is at San Gemignano. The chain bridge at Fornoli has today been spotlighted in red to commemorate this saddest of days.

I used to think that the UK did rather better in preserving women from violence and murder than Italy. Not so! In fact the scenario in Brexitania may be even more terrible in that a woman may be attacked by men she does not even know and who, in the horrific example of the abduction, murder and burning of Sarah Everard earlier this year, may even be police officers!

Last year we enjoyed a lovely walk through Fryent country park in North-west London on!y to find that the following day two sisters had been murdered there by a Satanist-indulging youth who hoped by this method to win the lottery. What added to the horror was that two police officers took photos of the bodies, describing them as ‘two dead birds’ and plastering the shots all over Facebook.Violence upon violence added to violence!

Even worse than this, if such a thing could ever be imagined, happened in the UK a few days ago with a whole family shattered when both mum and dad were murdered in their home while their children were sleeping upstairs. The motive was not jealousy, nor terrorism, nor satanism, nor perversity; it was the result of a dispute over parking!

Which brings me to parking in our own mountain comune. Fortunately, parking is generally reasonably disciplined with clearly allotted places for cars: no mean achievement for settlements built in an age when the main form of transport was by foot, if not by mule or horse.

However, there is at least one case I have heard of occurring in a local village where violence, if not murder, has occurred. But I do not wish to burden my readers with more unpleasantness on a day which should be dedicated to the memory of women abused and killed by male violence in the hope that the male conscience may be directed to eliminating this shameful practise not only in Italy, not only in the UK but throughout the world.

The chain bridge at Fornoli lit up to commemorate this day dedicated to women who have suffered under or been killed by men. (Courtesy Valerio Ceccarelli).