A janitor groped a student, she filed a complaint. Now he has been acquitted in Rome – on the grounds that the contact lasted only five to ten seconds. The anger about it is great.
The anger of the students vented itself in front of the Roberto Rossellini school. A good dozen have come to demonstrate here against a verdict that is driving women in Italy in particular, like student Carlotta: “This is the mirror of a society that we have to experience every day. It condemns women to live as a victim and remain silent even when harassed for fear of being blamed.”
To understand the anger of Carlotta and her fellow campaigners, you have to look back to April 2022. The setting: the Roberto Rossellini school. A 17-year-old schoolgirl goes into the classroom with a friend and feels someone grabbing her underpants from behind and groping her buttocks. It’s the school janitor. The young woman reports the case.
Violence against women is trivialized
A court in Rome has now ruled that since the contact only lasted between five and ten seconds, the criminal offense of sexual harassment was not met. For Elisa Ercoli, President of the women’s rights organization “Differenza Donne”, this verdict is an expression of a culture that trivializes violence against women.
It’s harassment in every way. Because the judge also confirmed that there was this violation of the woman’s privacy. We do not understand this legal interpretation, we contradict it.
The court actually sees the assault as proven, but it is about “awkward behavior without a sexual motive” on the part of the accused. He himself spoke of a “joke without bad intentions”.
Does harassment have to last ten seconds?
Sexual harassment is a criminal offense in Italy. It does not specify how long the harassment must last in order to be recognized as such. The fact that a court in Rome has now defined a minimum duration of ten seconds calls for creative protest.
For example, the video of a young couple on Instagram: He grabs her bottom. She says, “You groper, I’ll report you.” He, with a look at the clock: “I still have nine seconds.” She replies, “Ah, sorry, you’re right, under ten seconds it’s not a crime.”
Actor and writer Paolo Camilli popularized the hashtag “10secondi”. Celebrities show solidarity with the young woman by groping themselves in videos while running the stopwatch. Ten seconds is damn long.
Janitor is back to work at the school
The acquittal means that the caretaker can work again in his old school Roberto Rossellini. Prosecutors had asked for three and a half years in prison.
The young woman apparently wants to appeal the verdict. According to her defense attorney, she does not want to accept that such an act will not be punished as a crime.