Rome protest after woman raped outside Jonio subway station.
A large demonstration was held outside a subway station in a Rome suburb on Wednesday evening to express solidarity with a female student who was raped there on Saturday night and to call for action from authorities.
The 23-year-old Italian woman reported that she had just exited the Jonio metro station, in the northeast Tufello district, when she was attacked and held down by two men while a third man raped her on the street.
The victim reportedly described her attackers as north African and said they fled the scene on foot after the assault.
The student subsequently went to the Sandro Pertini hospital where medical staff raised the alarm with authorities.
A police investigation is underway in an attempt to identify the three assailants who were still at large on Thursday.
Investigators are looking into whether the men followed the woman from the metro train or if the encounter happened randomly outside the station.
The incident, one of several recent high-profile cases to have occurred in Rome, has prompted a public outcry.
In August a 60-year-old Italian woman taking her dog for an early morning walk was raped in Tor Tre Teste Park in the eastern Alessandrino suburb.
Last month, in the same park, a 20-year-old Italian woman was gang raped, while her boyfriend was forced to watch.
Women protesting at the scene of the brutal assault outside Jonio station voiced their anger and fear, while locals pointed to poorly lit streets in the vicinity.
The case has also sparked a political controversy in the capital, with calls on the city’s centre-left mayor Roberto Gualtieri to take action.
Luisa Regimenti, Rome secretary of the centre-right Forza Italia party, said: “We hope that Mayor Gualtieri and the left-wing majority, generally reluctant to acknowledge the problem, will put security at the top of their agenda.”
Rachele Mussolini, also Forza Italia, called on Gualtieri to use Jubilee and PNNR funds to install video surveillance systems outside all of the city’s subway stations.
Valeria Baglio, group leader of the centre-left Partito Democratico (PD) in the city assembly, called on the government to “allocate greater resources for nighttime police patrols”, adding: “Only by combining prevention with the deterrent of the physical presence of law enforcement will we be able to address the problem.
Photo credit: RVillalon / Shutterstock.com.
