'We need a revolution' Italian victim's sister campaigns for change

Just a day after being told that her sister Giulia was dead, Elena Cecchettin was interviewed on live TV outside the family home in Vigonovo, a small town close to Venice. Floral tributes were tied to the railings behind her, and a torchlight procession attended by thousands of well-wishers was under way. But Elena was not looking for sympathy. "Don't hold a minute of silence for Giulia - burn everything," she said. "We need a cultural revolution to ensure that Giulia's case is the last."

- Angela Giuffrida

On 18 November 2023, Giulia Cecchettin, 22, became Italy's 105th victim of femicide that year. Her body, with more than 70 stab wounds, was found wrapped in black plastic bags in a ditch close to a lake north of Venice. Filippo Turetta, her ex-boyfriend, confessed to killing the biomedical engineering student, who was just days away from graduating.

Yesterday prosecutors asked for Turetta to be jailed for life for voluntary manslaughter - aggravated by premeditation - kidnapping, cruelty, stalking and hiding a corpse. A verdict is due on 3 December.

Cecchettin might have remained a face behind a number - her case, like most other femicides in Italy, warranting only a few column inches in the newspapers. But Elena's eloquent appeal, which included the condemnation of "a patriarchal society steeped in rape culture", shook the national conscience, triggering thousands to protest across the country.

"I don't know where the courage came from," Elena told the Guardian. "I just know that I thought of Giulia, and needed to use the moment of visibility to tell things how they are. There are too many people, legitimised by a series of factors in society, who feel they can have the power over somebody else's life."