Description
On 23 January 2024 in Rome, the Central Anti-Crime Directorate of the Italian State Police (Direzione Centrale Anticrimine della Polizia di Stato) and the national wine association “Le Donne del Vino” signed a Protocol of Understanding to develop the #TUNONSEISOLA (“You are not alone”) project. It was signed by Alessandro Giuliano, Director of the Central Anti-Crime Directorate, and Daniela Mastroberardino, President of Le Donne del Vino, together with the association’s Sicily delegate Roberta Urso and deputy delegate Flora Mondello. The stated purpose is to promote training, information and awareness-raising initiatives at territorial level that spread knowledge of gender-based violence and of the protection tools available to victims, and that encourage women who experience violence to report it.
The agreement follows the path of the State Police’s permanent campaign “Questo non è amore” and extends its reach from the private sphere into workplaces and social and leisure settings, using the association’s network of more than 1,100 members – producers, restaurateurs, wine shop owners, sommeliers, journalists and wine experts across Italy, part of an international network of 10 women’s wine associations. Activities are addressed both to the female staff of member businesses and to the association’s followers and wine lovers, and include recognising the warning signs of violence, meetings in wineries, conferences and awareness actions, and a virtual listening space on the association’s website ledonnedelvino.com. The protocol formalises work the association had already been developing since 2018, after the murder of its member and sommelier Donatella Briosi by her ex-husband, and intensified after the femicide of member Marisa Leo in September 2023: financial support to anti-violence centres, gender-respect courses, the Sicilian solidarity wine-lunch roadshow “DxD: calici di vita” (launched in February 2023) and the “Marisa Leo Onlus”, which funds annual scholarships for the children of victims of violence.
Why this matters for Grapes of Change
This is one of the few documented cases in which a wine-sector organisation has entered into a formal, institutional agreement with a national law enforcement body on gender-based violence. It moves beyond stand-alone awareness campaigns towards a structured partnership in which police expertise – on the warning signs of violence, on the protection tools available and on how to report – is delivered through the sector’s own professional network, using the channels the sector already uses for training and events.
The model is directly transferable to Grapes of Change: the entry points are wineries, wine shops, restaurants and wine events, exactly the settings the project addresses, and the audience includes both women working along the supply chain and the wider public reached through wine communication. The case also shows that relative gender parity in a sector does not shield women from violence – an argument the association makes explicitly, citing its own figures of women as around 80% of marketing and communication staff, 51% of sales roles and 76% of wine-tourism reception roles – which is useful when engaging wine businesses that assume the issue does not concern them.
Lessons learned
Partnering with a public authority gives a sector association credibility, technical content and continuity that awareness campaigns run alone rarely achieve; the association itself framed the protocol as giving greater strength, credibility and concreteness to actions it was already carrying out. The case also suggests that awareness work carries more weight when it is anchored in the community’s own experience – members recognised the victims as their colleagues – and that outreach needs a concrete next step attached to it, here a virtual listening space and clear information on how and where to report, so that awareness can translate into action.
Sources and further information
https://ledonnedelvino.com/firmato-protocollo-con-la-polizia-di-stato-contro-la-violenza-di-genere/
https://www.poliziadistato.it/articolo/firmato-protocollo–tunonseisola-contro-la-violenza-di-genere
https://www.gamberorosso.it/vino/donne-vino-polizia-protocollo-contro-violenza-donne/
https://www.agricultura.it/2024/01/23/donne-del-vino-e-polizia-di-stato-siglano-un-protocollo-di-intesa-per-combattere-la-violenza-sulle-donne/