The lower chamber of the Italian parliament gave unanimous backing to the government bill yesterday, coinciding with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Femicide will carry a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment and is defined in the bill as the killing of a woman motivated by hatred, discrimination, domination, control, or retaliation for refusing or ending an intimate relationship.

Carolina Varchi, from Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s ruling Brothers of Italy party, told MPs: “Killing a woman is not more or less serious than killing a man — rather, these crimes have their own specific characteristics and, within our criminal law system, their own special features.

“For this reason, the government considered it appropriate to introduce this important legislative innovation.”

Legislators from the centre-left opposition supported the legislation as a “symbolic and cultural gesture”, but warned that criminalisation alone would not stop femicide.

“This bill is a step forward — it recognises a specific reality that until now had been ignored, and finally incorporates it into the criminal code,” Democratic Party MP Antonella Forattini said.

“But we cannot pretend that this is enough. Repression is necessary, but it intervenes only once the violence has already erupted. The real battle is fought earlier — in culture, in education, in relationships, in schools.

“The [introduction of the] offence of femicide is a door opening. The political choice before us is to decide whether we truly wish to walk through it and genuinely change the future of the next generations.”

Italy is the fourth EU member state to define femicide in law, with Cyprus, Malta and Croatia having legislated on the issue since 2022.