Domestic violence is the biggest killer of women in Europe, according to statistics released here on Thursday.
Figures presented at a conference on violence against women at the Italian Institute of Social Medicine noted that more European women between 16 and 44 are killed by violence in the home than by cancer, road accidents or armed conflict.
Turning to the situation in Italy, 1.15 million women were victims of violence last year, amounting to 5.4% of the adult female population, according to national statistics institute Istat.
Nearly two thirds of cases involved sexual violence of some kind, 50% physical violence and 6% rape or attempted rape.
In the vast majority of cases, the violence was inflicted by a partner (70%) or an acquaintance (17.4%).
Attacks by strangers accounted for just 6%.
There were 1.4 million reports of violent incidents on girls under the age of 16, according to Istat.
''There can be no excuse for violence against women,'' said the special commissioner for the Italian Institute of Social Medicine, Giovanni Maria Pirone.
''In order to stop it we need to work on men and start addressing how violence is passed on''.
Although the centre-left coalition has said tackling violence against women is a government priority, a bill designed to combat the problem has been languishing in parliament for nearly a year.
Tabled by the government in December 2006, it enjoys general support but has been repeatedly sidelined by other legislative drives.
The bill, which Equal Opportunities Minister Barbara Pollastrini has described as ''just a first step'', draws up a national plan and the establishment of an observatory to coordinate policies on fighting violence against women.
However, a number of the measures contained in the draft law also require substantial funding, which is creating further delay.
A survey at the start of the year found that 6.743 million Italian women have been the victims of physical or sexual violence at some point in their life, while 7.134 have been subjected to psychological abuse.
