Rita Atria (Italian pronunciation: [ˈriːta ˈaːtrja]; September 4, 1974 − July 26, 1992) was a witness and key collaborator in a major Mafia investigation in Sicily.

[3] In November 1991, at the age of 17, Rita decided to follow in her sister-in-law's footsteps, hoping to obtain justice for these murders from the legal system.

She would not care that her daughter was trying to bring her own son's killer to justice; in her opinion – and the deep-rooted Mafia culture she belonged to – the police were on the wrong side of the law.

Rita was then moved into a safe house under witness protection, an apartment on the seventh floor of a building in the outskirts of Rome, where the only people she knew were her police guards.

[1] The evidence provided by Rita and Piera, together with further testimony, led to the arrest of various Mafiosi[1] and to the launch of an enquiry on politician Vincenzo Culicchia, who at the time had been mayor of Partanna for thirty years.

[4] Information obtained from Rosalba Triolo, a woman from the rival Mafia factions in Partanna, independently confirmed the testimonies of Rita and Piera to be accurate.

[1] Many people regard Rita as a heroine because of her willingness to sacrifice everything, including the affection of her mother (who after her daughter's death destroyed her tombstone with a hammer) in order to pursue justice.

Because of this, she is referred to as a "collaboratore di giustizia" (someone who collaborates with prosecutors from the vantage point of being close to members of a criminal organization), a title that has been legally recognised in Italy by the law of 13/2/2001 n.

[8] Rita’s story was the subject of a 1997 documentary, One Girl Against the Mafia: Diary of a Sicilian Rebel ("Diario di una siciliana ribelle"), directed by Marco Amenta.