Antonella Baccaro (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
del “freedom income “, the subsidy of 400 euros per month for a maximum of 12 months, reserved for women who are victims of violence and in a state of poverty, we spoke positively about it when it was launched more than two years ago.
But the time has come to sum up: How did the measure introduced by the Conte II government work?
To make an accurate assessment of the law, financed with 12 million euros for the period 2020-2022, it is ActionAid. Which detects how in the first year, only 600 women benefited from it, compared to the 3,283 requests presented (INPS data), most of them from Lombardy, Puglia and Campania.
The funds are enough for 2,500 requests but, according to Istat, the audience would potentially include around 21,000 women a year.
The national law, in anticipation of the fact that the fund might not be enough, has left the possibility of integrating it to the Regions.
But some had moved even before the national government: Sardinia was the first Region in 2018 to adopt a monthly subsidy of a minimum of 780 euros for a maximum of three years. In the same year, Lazio instituted the “freedom contribution”, allocating a one-off maximum of 5 thousand euros to the beneficiaries. The Apulia Region has included in the “dignity income” specific courses for women victims of violence.
So far, 20 million euros have been allocated for income support measures, of which 14 from national resources, 4 million from regional resources and the remainder from European funds.
The main problem is that, once the period of subsidies has ended, women have not always recovered the state of economic independence. And at the national level, there is no law on reintegration into work that takes into consideration the specific needs of women who have come out of violence: burdens of family care, economic precariousness, logistical difficulties or lack of access to kindergartens and crèches.
The measures envisaged by the Regions include vocational training courses, internships, job grants, entrepreneurial start-up activities. But leaving the initiative to the territories only widens the gap that already exists between those with more means and those with less.
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