What stage of development are women's rights as human rights? By specifically regarding the prevention and elimination of all forms of Violence Against Women, the book focuses on two European Mediterranean countries: Italy and Spain. The book first considers the chronological description and analysis of the main international documents, those belonging to the United Nations apparatus, followed by the analysis of the sources on Gender-Based Violence Against Women (GBVAW) of the Council of Europe and the European Union.
The analysis of international documents guarantees an initial overview of the debate on GBVAW, following a top-down approach, from the UN to the national level. Successively, the focus is on both national sources as well as the level of government responsiveness in terms of policies on GBVAW in Italy and Spain, while also comparing the cases. The book adopts multimethod research based on qualitative text analysis; an examination of the level of national Government Responsiveness to GBVAW, and a series of in-depth interviews with targeted individuals. The final aim of this book is to understand how international (UN) and regional (CoE, EU) documents on GBVAW, along with the categories and expressions used within the documents, have contributed to different policies in countering GBVAW in Italy and Spain, while also highlighting the reasons why the two countries responded differently. Within a comprehensive international scenario, this book intends to create space for debate on possible future EU policies aimed at contrasting GBVAW.
Stellamarina Donato is a postdoctoral researcher in social sciences at LUMSA University of Rome, Italy. She received a Ph.D. and Doctor Europaeus on Gender-Based Violence Against Women (GBVAW) policies. Her research interests encompass EU policies focusing on migration and populism and gender and policies focusing on women's rights and gender-based violence against women. On these research topics, she published essays, book chapters, and articles in international and national journals, such as 'Italian Sociological Review' and 'Cultura Latinoamericana'. She is MC Member (Italy) and co-gender advisor to COST Action CA19112 Women on the Move (WEMov). She is also a member of the Research Unit: "Protagonismo e coscienza del femminile nel nuovo Millennio. La narrazione della violenza di genere in un tempo senza utopie" (LUMSA University of Rome) and founding member of "Narratives and Social Changes-International Research Group" (University of Salerno). She earned a scholarship as Visiting Ph.D. researcher at the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR). She obtained the role of research intern at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences. She worked on a Project about Populism and attitudes toward the EU in Central Europe. She has also obtained her Master's degree in International Relations from the University of Bologna, where she focused on EU-Mediterranean relations.
