The Senate on Wednesday definitively approved a so-called 'anti-rape' emergency decree that increases penalties against sexual offenders and introduces stalking as a crime.
All but four opposition senators voted in favour of the decree after successfully fighting to remove two controversial clauses about immigrant detention times and citizen patrols from the text.
''Italy is now among the most advanced nations in terms of the fight against sexual violence,'' Equal Opportunities Minister Mara Carfagna said.
''From today, Italian women can feel safer. The season of zero tolerance against those who commit crimes against them has begun,'' she added.
The emergency decree was first activated in February by the cabinet in the wake of a string of high-profile rape cases, mostly involving foreigners, that brought crime fears and anti-immigrant feeling to a new pitch, but needed to be approved by parliament to pass into law.
The decree introduces a raft of penal measures, including life sentences for those who murder their victim after a rape as well as increased sentences for those who rape a minor or who are involved in gang rapes.
It also requires that suspected rapists be kept in custody rather than be granted house arrest except in exceptional circumstances and guarantees free legal assistance to rape victims.
Among the anti-stalking measures introduced are prison terms of between six months and four years for repeated threats or harassment.
Carfagna said that in the two months since the cabinet issued the decree, ''the measures have already been used by hundreds of Italian women to free themselves from their nightmares''.
The minister said 102 people had been arrested for stalking, while a further 132 were under investigation.
''So many women have already been able to use the free assistance and have had the guarantee that their tormentors would not be 'rewarded' with reduced punishments or house arrest, but would finally wind up in prison,'' Carfagna said.
''I want to thank the opposition, which understood the importance of the measures that have been long-awaited by Italian women of all ages and drawn up precisely for them,'' she added.
CONTROVERSIAL CLAUSES DROPPED.
Earlier this month, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said he was ''furious'' after parliament's lower house, including a number of government MPs, voted to remove a clause from the decree that would have extended the amount of time illegal immigrants can be held in identification and expulsion centres (CIEs) from two to six months.
Maroni said the move was ''essentially a pardon for illegal immigrants'' and warned that it would mean over 1,000 immigrants would have to be released later this month.
The minister, who began a drive to repatriate illegal immigrants who arrive on Italy's southern shores by boat, said two months was ''insufficient'' to complete the process.
He had argued that the new detention time would have been in line with a European Union directive which allows illegal immigrants to be held at CIEs for up to 18 months.
Another measure in the original decree permitting the use of unarmed citizen patrols to help in the policing of high-risk areas was removed with government approval and is slated to appear instead in a separate crime bill.
