Violence casts dark shadow on St Valentine’s in Italy

ROME: “If love hurts, now you know where to get off, even on St Valentine’s day.”

With the help of a new map of the Rome underground and a video that went viral and topped news bulletins, Italy marked the international day of love on Tuesday by focusing on domestic violence and stalking.

The map, created by digital artist and marketer Maria Beatrice Alonzi, shows the police stations closest to each stop in the Italian capital, graphically underlining a message that help is at hand.

“Today is a day when many people are only thinking about chocolate and flowers but there are other very important things to talk about,” Alonzi, 33, said.

“I don’t know about other countries but, in Italy, for many women it is a day that just adds to the pressure on them — why don’t they have a boyfriend, why don’t they have a perfect figure?

“And for women who are subject to domestic violence it is so much worse because they feel so scared, so absolutely and definitively alone.”

More than 120 women were killed by partners in Italy last year and cases of stalking and jealousyinspired violence are frequently highlighted in the media as a major social problem born of a particularly macho culture.

Such outcomes and the need to highlight a way to stop them led to the “If love hurts” theme of the campaign.

“So that was the idea of the video — a woman in the crowds on the metro, but she is completely alone. And maybe the map can make her think, just for a moment, that freedom and happiness are within reach, that she can go, on foot, to one of the police stations.” — AFP