COURAGE

On International Women's Day last Saturday a 67-year-old Sicilian woman was received by President Napolitano at the Quirinale [the President of the Republic's official residence] and invested with the honour of the Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana.

The woman was Franca Viola, a tenant farmer's daughter from Alcamo [Trapani]. At the age of 17, Franca was kidnapped by her former fiancé, Filippo Melodia and some of his friends. Franca's father had ended the betrothal because Melodia was a member of a Mafia gang. The Viola family home had already been burned down as a reprisal.

Franca was held for eight days and repeatedly raped. Her father pretended to be cooperating with Melodia's gang but actually he was helping the police, who on the eighth day found and released Franca. Her kidnappers were jailed.

In those days, rape in Italy was regarded as an offence against public morality rather than an offence against the person and a man who had raped a woman could be absolved of the crime if he married his victim. The woman would agree to the marriage to save her reputation. 

Franca, however, refused to marry Melodia and her father supported her. This took incredible courage amid the threats that the family received and in the cultural climate of the time but both were determined.

The story has a happy ending, for Franca married her childhood sweetheart in 1968 and had two children. She is now a proud grandmother.

The law whereby a rapist could be absolved of his crime by marrying the victim was abolished in 1981 and Franca Viola was instrumental in bringing about the change. Rape was not designated an offence against the person in Italy until 1996. 

On International Women's Day 2014 the Quirinale was bathed in red light in remembrance of victims of femicide in Italy.

Franca Viola

MIGRATION UPDATE - A PROPOSAL AND A QUESTION

Darkness is falling earlier and it's the end of October but there seems no end in sight to the "boatloads of sorrow" arriving on Sicily's shores: on Sunday the Italian navy saved  408 migrants, including 80 children and 40 women, from a boat in trouble off Augusta [Siracusa] and yesterday a Coast Guard patrol rescued 41 migrants whose boat got into difficulty 70 miles off Lampedusa. Another naval vessel went to the aid of a boat carrying 97 migrants, among them ten children.

Yesterday was also the day when the Comitato 3 ottobre - formed after the migrant tragedy on that date this year - presented its proposal for a law making 3rd October a day of remembrance to groups in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.  Under the proposed law, the text of which, most unusually for an Italian bill, contains only two articles, 3rd October every year would become a day to remember all migrants who have died fleeing persecution, oppression, poverty and war together with all who have risked their lives trying to save them. Members of the Committee have asked for meetings with President Napolitano and the presidents of both houses.

Meanwhile yesterday a group of around 100 migrants blocked the road to San Vito Lo Capo [Trapani] in protest at shortages in the reception centre at Bonagia and at delays in the processing of documents which would allow them to remain in Italy.

I have a concern which no one, to my knowledge has yet raised and it is this:  if in Italy there are groups of migrants who are not being assisted and whose cases are not being heard urgently, they will surely become depressed, disillusioned and angry.  How will the experience change them and who is lying in wait to take advantage of their situation?

DON'T PUT YOUR DAUGHTER ON THE STAGE

Don't put your daughter - or anyone else, for that matter - on the stage in Tràpani:  this seems to be the moral of what happened in the city's main square on Friday when, during a concert to celebrate this year's "Extreme Sailing" event, Lello Anafino, lead singer of the Sicilian group Tinturia, jumped a little on stage and fell into an enormous hole. Lello Anafino was not violently breaking guitars on stage, nor is he particularly heavy and the stage was not overcrowded so no one is sure exactly why it crumbled beneath his feet.  However, I can tell you that whoever constructed the stage is not popular with Lello's fans!

Lello says he still has neck pain and has to lie flat but he hopes to be back among his fans soon and in better shape than ever - stages permitting.

Tinturia - Lello's Fall




Richard Conrad - Mrs Worthington

A FIRST FOR TRAPANI

Aeroporto di Trapani-Birgi
Image:  Wikimedia Commons

Sicily's Trapani-Birgi [Vincenzo Florio] Airport has this weekend been named the world's top airport for increased passenger use in the World Airport Traffic Report 2010 published by ACI  [Airports Council International]. It was ranked 406th airport overall in the study of data from 900 airports worldwide.

This is indeed good news for the airport that is the "gateway to western Sicily" and it could certainly do with some for, being a civil airport that is sometimes used for military purposes, Trapani-Birgi has found itself involved in the Libyan crisis, with NATO planes having taken off from there on missions to the country. This has sadly caused a 50% decrease in the airport's civil traffic in 2011.

Salvatore Ombra, president of the airport's management company Airgest, is, however, optimistic:  he says that, provided the Italian government lifts limitations on the use of the airport for civil flights from October 1st, as promised, the airport's apron is reassigned to civil aircraft and that the government pays the airport the €10 million due to it in compensation for disruption to civil flights, Trapani-Birgi will again be able to operate at full capacity, maintaining current routes and introducing new ones.

Good luck, Trapani-Birgi!

IL SIGNORE VESTE ARMANI

Staying with ecclesiastical news tonight, if the devil wears Prada, God, it seems, wears Armani or at least, his representative in Mazara del Vallo [Trapani Province] does.  Monsignor Domenico Mogavero caused a bit of a sensation on Sunday when he blessed the new churchyard on Pantelleria Island dressed in red, purple, green and white vestments designed by Giorgio Armani.  Emblems of land and sea, representing the island, were also depicted on the garments.

They sound very fine garments to me and I do think the Bishop's critics are being a little harsh:  most of us feel better in a set of new clothing and it's not as if the good Monsignore had spent any money on these, as they were a gift from Giorgio Armani himself.  The designer has a home on Pantelleria and has spent his holidays there for the past 37 years.  In 2006 he was made an honorary citizen of Pantelleria.

The Bishop felt that he was honouring both the new churchyard and Giorgio Armani by wearing the new vestments and good luck to him, say I.

AND THE BEST BEACH IN ITALY IS....

Image:  http://www.sanvitoweb.com/

... San Vito Lo Capo in Trapani, Sicily, I am proud to announce.  This beautiful beach tops the Italian beaches list in  Trip Advisor's 2011 Travelers' Choice Awards and also came eighth in the site's list of the top 25 beaches in Europe.

Villasimius Beach in Sardinia came second in the Italian list and, in some good news at last for the Island of Lampedusa, its beaches came third. 

According to the site, the best beach in the world is Providenciales and I just have to tell you that the best UK beach is St Ives in Cornwall.