Does it count as sexual assault if it lasted less than ten seconds?
It’s a question that stirs emotions in Italy, where a judge acquitted a school janitor of sexual abuse charges based on how long it lasted, writes CNN.
“Palpata breve”, short paw in Italian, has become a viral expression.
It all started at a high school in Rome last year where a 17-year-old student was walking up a flight of stairs. Suddenly she felt her pants being pulled down and a hand that took her bottom inside the panties and then grabbed them.
“Old man, you know I’m just kidding,” the man said when the girl turned around.
The student reported the man, who is a 66-year-old janitor at the school, to the police. He admitted that he groped the girl, but reiterated that it was just a joke.
The prosecutor demanded three and a half years in prison for sexual assault, but earlier this week the man was fully acquitted of the charges. According to the judge, the assault was not a crime because it lasted less than ten seconds.
Afraid to discourage
Since the verdict was handed down, “palpata breve” has become a trend on social media along with the hashtag #10secondi, i.e. “ten seconds”. On Tiktok, clips of Italians holding their private parts for ten seconds in total silence are being shared, to demonstrate how uncomfortably long those seconds can be.
Recent figures from the EU’s agency for fundamental rights, FRA, show that only 70 percent of Italian women who were victims of sexual assault or harassment between 2016 and 2021 did not choose to report to the police.
The 17-year-old victim of the abuse has come out in Italian media and said she is worried that this will deter even more women from reporting.
“They will feel that it is not worth it to report the abuse to the police. But it is important, because silence protects the perpetrators”.