ROME, Sept 5 — An internet abuse scandal rocking Italy is seen by some as a potential #MeToo moment, although one leading lawyer warns many victims feel too trapped or intimidated to press charges.

Rome prosecutors have opened an investigation into two sites that hit the headlines in August after high-profile women denounced them as platforms for “virtual rape”.

The sites permitted men to post intimate or doctored photographs of women – from celebrities to the men’s own wives or daughters – along with sexual, misogynistic or violent comments.

Silvia Semenzin, an Italian sociologist specialising in gender violence and online misogyny, told AFP she reported the website Phica in 2019, but her complaint was not followed up.

Phica – a play on a slang term for vagina in Italian – had around 100,000 users at the time, compared to more than 700,000 when it was finally shut down last week, she said.

The porn site classified girls by their names, regions or cities and posted photographs stolen from social media or doctored images from official or public functions.

Some users posted pictures of their former partners. A special spy section gave tips on installing hidden cameras.

As Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – herself one of the victims – slammed the site, dozens of others came forward to say they had been targeted.

“A real #MeToo has been born. There has never been anything like it in Italy,” Semenzin said.

“We can no longer act as if nothing happened, this is a problem that affects everyone,” she said.

The #MeToo movement, which exploded in 2017 in the United States, has so far failed to take off in Italy, with campaigners for women’s rights pointing to a culture of victim-blaming.

And, while femicide is a hot topic amid debates over how to tackle possessive misogynists, the voices of female victims are hardly ever heard in public.

‘Afraid’ 

Semenzin said many hoped the scandal would have a similar impact to that of the case in France of Gisele Pelicot, whose husband was convicted in 2024 of helping dozens of men rape her over years.

“In Italy, (that case) has been talked about a lot, and many people are now thinking about it,” Semenzin said, particularly regarding the other site in the current scandal, a Facebook group titled “Mia Moglie” (”My Wife”).

While on Phica users are unidentified, on My Wife those posting pictures without consent and making vulgar or violent comments were identifiable as the victims’ husbands or male relatives.

Italian lawyer Annamaria Bernardini de Pace told AFP she was orchestrating a class action over the Phica website, with “many” women ready to file police complaints.

But her efforts to launch a similar action over My Wife, which was closed by Facebook owner Meta last month, have so far failed.

“Women tell me they won’t report it, because they’re afraid,” she said.

“They’re afraid of their husbands. They’re afraid of their children having a father who has been reported. They’re afraid of being criticised by people they know.

“Or because they would have to separate, (and) they don’t want to be alone.”

The family lawyer said she had wanted to “bring all women together under the principle of sisterhood”.

Bernardini de Pace said she needed just one woman to come forward and be named on the class action for it to go ahead.

“It was an opportunity to teach men a solemn lesson so that they would no longer dare to be violent or toxic narcissists,” she said.

“Instead, the women do not want to defend themselves”, she added, slamming a “silence complicit with violence”. — AFP