WAR AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE – UCEI supports OIVD members who acknowledge the horror of October 7

Libération launched the appeal. This petition was started by the French newspaper on change.org, and some exponents of Italy’s Interreligious Observatory on Violence against Women (OIVD) made it their own. The appeal received the support of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities: “UCEI welcomes the attention that a group of councilwomen of the OIVD gave to the raping and the violence perpetrated against Israeli women on October 7 and to the desolating denial of what occurred by some important humanitarian associations. We were already expecting a sign from this organization the day after this unmatched terrorist attack in Israeli history took place. Yet, once again, expectations of coherence and truth have not been honored, despite decades of effort on the topic of memory and the contribution of religious minorities to the social growth of the country. A lot of work still needs to be done, and the presence of someone who decides to share their opinion should be granted, even inside these associative realities.”
What follows is a passage of the petition: “On initiative of the association Paroles de femmes, we make an appeal to feminists and to those who support our cause so that the massacres perpetrated on women on October 7 in Israel are recognized as femicide […] Many civilians have died, yet women were not killed the same way the others were. The violence perpetrated corresponds in every way to the definition of femicide, and that is the homicide of women and girls because of their gender. Women were forced to parade naked […], they were raped until their pelvis broke.”

Click here to read the petition.

(Photo Giovanni Montenero)

Translated by Francesca Pischedda and revised by Annadora Zuanel, students at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – Pagine Ebraiche.