Prostitution in Italy
An 1859 decree, by Count Camillo Benso di Cavour to aid the French army which supported the Piedmontese in their fight against Austria, authorized the opening of houses controlled by the state for the exercise of prostitution in Lombardy.
A further law (Legge Crispi), adopted on 29 March 1888, prohibited the selling of food and drinks, and parties, dances, and songs in brothels, and banned such establishments near places of worship, schools, and kindergartens.
Overall, the system was considered a failure, and as in other European countries with Réglementation, movement for its abolition started to grow from the late 19th century, supported by leftist and feminist groups.
This law, still in force today, with very little changes, revoked the regulation system, banned brothels, and established a new criminal offence called "exploitation of prostitution" (sfruttamento della prostituzione), with the aim to punish procuring of sexual services.
Specifically, article 3.8 provides penalties for "any person who, in any way, promotes or exploits the prostitution of others" (chiunque in qualsiasi modo favorisca o sfrutti la prostituzione altrui).
Article 3.3 lists a number of public places where prostitution is prohibited, such as houses, hotels, dance halls, and entertainment clubs.
The law was promoted as an equality measure liberating women, but despite its good intentions to give more rights to prostitutes otherwise dependent on pimps, it was, and still remains to this day, a subject of intense debate.
[5][12] Among these migrants were women who took up prostitution with varying degrees of voluntarity, with some suffering coercion and debt bondage (human trafficking), including under-aged girls.
[8] One response of the local authorities in dealing with the problem was rescinding residence permits issued to foreign women found in the streets, and increased deportations of the clandestini.
In turn, this created another force driving public attitudes, which were community groups from urban neighbourhoods where street prostitution was most visible, particularly since the mid-1990s.
[20] Originally proposed by international agencies, and approved by the European Union in 1996, the cause of protecting migrant prostitutes was taken up in Italy by Maria Paola Colombo Svevo (PPI), President of Irene, an NGO, and by other Catholic and lay NGOs such as Caritas.
The political initiative to address the situation of women migrants came from Anna Finocchiaro (Democratic Party), the Minister of Equal Opportunities.
Giorgio Napolitano (Democrats of the Left), the Interior Minister, announced new measures in 1997 to deal with prostitution as an issue of urban safety, and there was little debate over his proposals, given widespread concerns over human trafficking.
The law envisioned that these permits would be administered by local police chiefs (questori) on humanitarian grounds, but this concerned NGOs because of the complexity of the procedures involved and the potential for abuse.
In advocating this, Turco was influenced by the Commission for Equal Opportunities, whose first president, Elena Marinucci (PSI), had embraced the aims of the Comitato and attempted to legislate this in 1987.
Despite gender neutral language, the implementation focused on young female victims of trafficking, which was driven by populist media imagery.
When the government led by Massimo D'Alema was elected later that year in October 1998 three women ministers from three political parties (Federation of the Greens, Italian People's Party, and Democrats of the Left) - Laura Balbo (Equal Opportunities), Rosa Russo Jervolino (Internal Affairs) and Livia Turco (Social Affairs) announced they would look at new proposals on battling trafficking and defending the dignity of women.
The result was a new prominence for Anna Finocchiaro's consultative body, the Inter-ministerial Table for the Fight against Trafficking (in February 1998) with wide representation.
[24] In 2008, a new bill outlawing street prostitution[25] was introduced by Mara Carfagna,[26][27][28] Minister for Equal Opportunities,[29] and approved by the Consiglio dei ministri on 11 September.
[30][31][32] The bill is framed as an amendment to the Legge Merlin of 20 February 1958, No 75 by providing for penalties for the act of prostitution, solicitation, or availing oneself of sexual services in a place open to the public (Art.
[33][34] In interviews with Gente and Panorama, Carfagna stated that she was declaring war on prostitution[35] and criticised opponents who proposed quartieri a luci rosse (red light districts).
While enforcement varies by region and over time, the immediate effect has been the expected and desired one of clearing the streets (at least temporarily) and displacing people/women in prostitution to remote areas.
[6] On 7 April 2011, the Italian Constitutional Court with the Sentence n. 115/2011 decided that this kind of Mayors' Ordinances must have time and space limits and urgent conditions to be issued.
36 paragraph 34 bis of Law 248/2006), prostitution has been taxed in the same way as any other legal money earned, as confirmed by the Highest Court multiple times.
Amongst the ongoing debates surrounding prostitution in Italy are the legal scholars who advocate "diritto leggero", the concept that the State should intervene only minimally in matters considered the free choice of the individual.
[49] In regard to legal issues, feminists in general have supported the Merlin law, which banned brothels and regulation; and stood for decriminalization, with the exception of exploitation by third parties (pimps).
In the centre-left government of Prodi, the policy system was reasonably open, and the dominant approach matched that of the women's movement, in moving ahead with "protection".
In 1996, two female politicians, Anna Serafini and Daria Bonfietti (DS), introduced legislation to penalize the use of under-age people/women in prostitution, responding to a series of international forces, including Programme of Action Against Sexual Exploitation of Children for Commercial Purposes (Stockholm 1996), UNESCO, and ECPAT.
The media reported abuse and murders (particularly an 8-year-old boy in Ostia in 1998,)[50] internet child pornography and sex tourism, with the terminology shifting from 'teenager' to 'child', and frequently conflated 'women and children' as equally vulnerable.
Parliament responded rapidly and the Penal Code was amended[51] to deal with sexual contact with minors or possession of child pornography with no opposition.
