A flood of women and girls, and also of men, is crossing the streets of central Rome shouting "Women Life Freedom - Jin Jian Azadi": the demonstration called by "Non una di meno" is attended by anti-violence centers and feminist collectives from all over Italy.
The procession started from Piazza della Repubblica and will arrive in Piazza San Giovanni, crossing the Esquilino district.
Before departure, a theater-dance performance by the Our Voice group and the intervention of
an Iranian woman who asks Italy to stop helping the Iranian regime, an enemy of women
.
Shouting "Women Life Freedom - Jin Jian Azadi", the slogan created by the fighters in Kurdistan, the procession begins to move.
And in fact a banner with the inscription "Defend Rojava" is lowered from a balcony in via Cavour in homage to the resistance of the autonomy of north-eastern Syria.
At the head of the procession the truck of the "Eco-trans-feminist revolt" and the banner of the activists "Enough war on our bodies".
“We are the very loud and ferocious cry of all those women who no longer have a voice”, they sing.
Some women bring a
long white sheet to the square with the names of women killed by male violence in 2022
.
The activists of Non una di meno in the procession in Rome waved the house keys, in a collective performance that involved dozens of people.
”We shake the house keys making noise - explained one of the organizers - because
often
the male rapist has the house keys
.
It is our denunciation of domestic violence.
But it is also the gesture we make when we go home alone in the evening, to give us courage”.
The performance ended with the chorus “
The rapist is not sick, he is the healthy son of the patriarchy
”.
And “
safe roads are made by the women who cross them
”.
The demonstrators denounce the
exploitation of male violence against women for repressive, racist and social control purposes
.
With the increase of widespread social control, women are driven back into the family and this means greater exposure to violence: women are doubly controlled, by their husbands and by the state.
Women know how to defend themselves daily from men's violence: "
Feminist self-defense practices
are part of our paths" recalls an activist, who adds: "
Self-defense means
: knowing that no means no, in daily life;
recognize when your living space is being invaded;
trust your instincts and recognize a dangerous situation;
recognize when we are living within a situation of violence;
turn to other women.
Self-defense is the work of the companions of the anti-violence centers, it is legal self-defense, self-defense is an anti-violence center that is a civil party in a rape trial.
Today we tell all women that they can and must defend themselves
”.
Then, from the truck, attention was drawn to the conditions of
migrant women
: "They called them residual loads as they called the victims of the bombings collateral damage - the truck said - The only residual load we know is the patriarchy and how such must be demolished”.
And in fact, violence against women has no colour, no passport, no class, no age, but has only one gender: it is men who carry it out, the activists recall.
There is also a large banner with the words "Meloni go away" and the girls and boys who participate in the demonstration sing: "Government Meloni prepare to tremble, we are free to fight".
A girl is holding a sign, an invitation to Giorgia Meloni: “The president.
Much more than a linguistic question”.