Intimate partner sexual violence: An overview of the problem in Italy

Intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV) is a severe and complex social problem, present all over the world but often overlooked. The aim of this review is to show current knowledge about IPSV, with a particular focus on Italy. Sexual violence involves a large range of negative consequences for mental, physical and sexual health of victims, that increase when violence is committed by a partner because of the daily proximity with the aggressor, the repetitive nature and the association with other forms of violence. Victims often find it difficult to report the sexual violence by their partner both for individual factors, such as guilt, shame or fear, or for social factor like gender stereotypes. In Italy, sexual violence was recognized as a crime in 1996. However, in some contexts, IPSV may be culturally accepted, inducing women to tolerate a certain degree of sexual violence by their partner. Given the seriousness of the consequences, it is important to investigate the wide range of risk factors associated with IPSV in order to create specific prevention programs and guidelines that help practitioners to investigate the phenomenon and to give adequate support to victims.