Overview
- Justice Minister Carlo Nordio told a Rome conference that a male 'genetic code' resists equality and urged legal measures alongside education beginning in families.
- Family Minister Eugenia Roccella said school sex and relationship education does not correlate with fewer femicides, pointing to Sweden as her example.
- Opposition parties and gender‑violence experts condemned the remarks as deterministic or misleading, noting Eurostat data showing Sweden’s lower partner/family homicide rate and UNODC findings of declines in Northern Europe.
- Nordio explained the push to classify femicide as an autonomous crime punishable by life imprisonment, while Minister Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati announced work on a unified text for prevention norms.
- The remarks, delivered days before the 25 November observances, have fueled a national debate with no immediate policy changes reported, and Roccella later pressed for evidence tying school programs to reduced femicides.