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The Observatory / Who we are
The Non Una Di Meno (NUDM) Observatory of Femicide Lesbicides Trans*cides (FLT) in Italy monitors the events, reported by the media, which can be classified as femicides, lesbicides and trans*cides. That is, events in which the killing of a person occurs for reasons attributable to power relations and patriarchal gender-based violence.
In Italy there are various institutional observatories, online pages of the media and associations that deal with gender-based violence and violence against women and, in particular, with murders of women and femicides.
Due to the feminist and transfeminist approach that characterizes NUDM, the Observatory includes, together with femicides, also all cases involving trans* people and all subjectivities on which the perpetrated violence has the same hetero-cis-patriarchal and homolesbobitransphobic root.
The Observatory also monitors cases of suicide induced by this structural and systemic violence, and cases in which there are other people involved and killed: children, husbands, friends and acquaintances who die together with women and trans* people perhaps in an attempt to stop the murderer.
In various cities of Italy, the territorial and transterritorial nodes of NUDM adopt practices of re-appropriation of spaces in the memory of those killed, with matryoshkas, pañuelos and other symbols, which show not only the growing number of cases but also the stories of these people.
This Observatory arises from the need to structure the information collected in a quantitative way. The focus is not only on the numbers but on what they represent, on the prevailing narrative in the media, on accompanying families in some judicial cases when there is consent of the families themselves.
Without wishing to set static criteria, the bottom-up monitoring work moves from some starting points. Not all murders in which the victim is a woman are necessarily femicides. Trans* and gendered persons considered “non-compliant” are also victims of gender-based violence and victims of femicide or trans*cide. Lesbian people can be victims of lesbicide. There are many variables to monitor and that are discussed by the NUDM Observatory in collective moments. In addition to basic personal information, we collect information on the personal and family conditions of the victims, on the causes of death and on the use of firearms, on the interrelation between gender, age, nationality of the victims, on the health conditions and physical and / or mental well-being of those killed and of murderes and alledged murderers, thus also reflecting on the lack of adequate care and assistance systems. In addition to the total number, this set of data can provide tools for better understanding and fighting these extreme forms of hetero-cis-patriarchal and homolesbobitransphobic violence.
We do this because it is important to have a space where the systemic phenomenon of gender-based violence and its final and non-reversible point of arrival are analysed with a transfeminist lens.
We want to overturn the point of view that focuses on the behavior of victims that may have caused the murder. THERE ARE NO reasons, and we do not accept the reasons that are often referred to as justifications such as love, madness, illness, or the need for an extreme and unavoidable gesture.
Femicide is part of a logic and practice of possession, power, control, a hierarchical practice that wants to cancel the freedom and self-determination of each person, of each individual.
Enough with patriarchal violence! We want to count ourselves alive.