I’ve been a part of the local police force of Ravenna, Italy for 34 years, the city where I was born and raised. Today I am deputy commander and have held that position for the past 11 years. I feel that being a woman in this role helps to form an equilibrium in a male-dominated industry and brings another perspective to the decision-making table which is so important especially when it comes to the decisions made for the city and the community.

In addition to my role as a police officer, I am also a volunteer and one of the founding members of the Linea Rosa Foundation, an anti-violence center which we started 30 years ago to support women who are experiencing abuse and violence.  We were about thirty women who found ourselves thinking that it was necessary to have a place for women to help protect women and our initial goal was to prevent females from incidents of sexual assault on the street. However, we quickly realized that most of the women calling the help center were experiencing intra-family violence and in fact, 99% of the perpetrators were not strangers but rather men who had, at one time, sentimental relationships with these women. We then transformed from a call center to a physical location that these women could come to and, thanks to the Municipality of Ravenna, in 1998 we were able to open our first shelter.

Today, we welcome about 450 women per year to our shelters in Ravenna, Cervia and Russi. This number shows how widespread this problem still is, especially since so many women still experience domestic abuse and do not talk about it. It is extremely difficult for women to admit that their husband, life partner or father of their children is also their abuser.

I used to ask myself in what capacity am I here today? My capacity as a police officer or my capacity as a volunteer and I realized that there was possibly too much of a division between the two.

In 2003 the Emilia Romagna Region accepted my request to fund the first regional course for the local police of the province of Ravenna on violence against women and family abuse. This course was to help police officers to be able to pick up signs of abuse since, as mentioned, many women are reluctant to speak up or sometimes don’t even recognize the abuse themselves since the first phase of the abuse is typically psychological and later on becomes physical.  The police must also be able to receive complaints without any form of prejudice and without debasing the act reported – a slap is never ‘just’ a slap. This was one of the first courses on the subject, especially for Local Police, and it paved the way for subsequent similar training courses.  A few years ago, I was invited to an international conference, FISU in Paris, where I brought the experience of the local police of Ravenna in the fight against gender violence.

If I could say anything to women experiencing any form of abuse, I would tell them that violence is never justifiable. They should rely on the police and anti-violence centers and trust the professionals who make up the support network. They must put an end to domestic violence for themselves and for their sons and daughters who, growing up in abusive environments, often suffer from indirect violence by simply witnessing the abuse.

We’ve welcomed more than 7,500 women to our shelters over the years and my biggest wish would be to be able to close the anti-violence centers for good but not because of a lack of resources but rather because there’s no longer a need.