Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Tajani: “An opportunity to learn to have the courage to act and no longer be passive witnesses”  

Milan, November 22 2020 – Milan, increasingly attentive to preventing violence and harassment in public places, invites everyone to no longer be inert and silent witnesses. On the occasion of the next World Day against Violence against Women on 25 November, the Municipality joins the StandUP project promoted by L'Oréal Paris in collaboration with the NGO Hollaback and the RCS group.  

“StandUp: against violence in public places" is the training program designed to recognize and prevent harassment in public places and build a safe and inclusive space for everyone. For the occasion, a webinar dedicated to Municipality employees was planned of Milan which teaches how to recognize a situation of harassment and how to behave if you suffer or witness abuse in a public place. The webinar will take place online on Monday 23 November from 10.40 to 12, with an introduction by the councilor for Labor Policies, Productive Activities and Human Resources, Cristina Tajani and Councilor Diana De Marchi.

“This course aims to offer an additional tool to learn how to manage episodes of abuse and harassment against women in the workplace and in public situations - explains the councilor for Labor Policies and Human Resources, Cristina Tajani -. It is a path that involves everyone, not only potential victims, but colleagues, and anyone who can recognize an alarm bell and asks themselves the problem of how to intervene in the correct way, respecting the sensitivity and privacy of the woman involved. The objective that we as an administration have set ourselves with this and other training courses, such as that on gender language or on the skills acquired when becoming mothers, is to make people understand how consolidated attitudes and customs often serve to diminish the role of women in world of work and this devaluation is precisely the basis on which every form of violence is based. It seems right and appropriate to me to launch this new path close to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, so that the idea it brings with it is clear to everyone: we must all be committed against violence against women, laying the foundations every day to undermine social processes and habits, starting from the world of work which, without women, is less rich, less creative and less fair"  

The objective of the Stand Up project is to train one million people internationally to become part of the StandUp community, thus contributing to building and spreading a new culture in which harassment in public places is seen as unacceptable behaviour.

The NGO Hollaback! He is among the world's leading exponents of the movement to end harassment. Launched by some young people as a blog where they could share their experiences of harassment, it quickly turned into a global initiative. Hollaback! works with communities to understand the problem, stimulate public debate and develop innovative strategies that lead to safe and welcoming situations for all. In recent years the project has trained over 20.000 people to intervene and not remain helpless when witnessing an act of harassment.