Parma, Nov. 25, 2024 - As of today, there are 10 red benches in the various plexuses of the University of Parma. They are both a symbol and a commitment, in the face of an increasingly dramatic tragedy as violence against women is. 10 new benches that by their very presence say that it is urgent to do something, institutions and people, to change things.
The numbers are frightening: in 2024 in Italy the number of women killed is almost one hundred. Alongside these are the figures for crimes of persecution, stalking, harassment and psychological violence, and then there is everything that does not come to be a number - the undeclared, the unknown, the unreported - to define the contours of a gigantic phenomenon that needs collective intervention to be subverted. First and foremost, starting precisely with raising awareness and education, working on gender stereotypes and building relationships between men and women oriented toward respect and freedom.
"That of violence against women is an issue whose urgency is more and more terrible, day after day: it is a social drama, a daily tragedy towards which a choral, collective commitment is needed, for a change of pace, first and foremost cultural, that is increasingly necessary. The 10 red benches we have placed in the different plexuses of the University are a symbol and a way of saying that we are there, we take charge and we will continue to do so: In the University but also outside, giving in all hubs our contribution so that things can really change." said the Rector Paolo Martelli "inaugurating" this morning the hub's red bench together with a student and a student from the Social work course: Giada Vittimberga and Claudio De Togni Gjoni.
Red benches have been placed in the University's Central Hub, Science and Technology Campus, Kennedy-d'Azeglio complex, Department of Medicine and Surgery (Hospital Area), Viale San Michele complex Linguistics, and San Francesco complex.
On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the University's CUG also released an awareness-raising video made with second-year students of the course in Social work (as part of the Applied Methodology in Social work Laboratory) with the collaboration of the Selma Center. The video focuses on the personal experiences of girls and boys reworked through the accompaniment of Glenda D'Orefice, Mattia Greca, Francesca Nori and Donatella Peroni. It is simultaneously an awareness-raising tool and a good training practice, another piece of the University's commitment to actively countering the culture of gender-based violence.
