We interviewed Dr. Alessandra Kustermann, who worked for more than 40 years at the Mangiagalli clinic as the director of the gynecology and obstetrics ward. In 1996, she founded the first public sector anti-violence center in Italy, the SVSeD (Soccorso Violenza Sessuale e Domestica), dedicated to helping the victims of sexual and domestic violence. Since then, she has continued to actively dedicate herself to this field, contributing to the foundation of associations and projects offering mistreated women some concrete tools for getting away from the violence.

Among these, the most recent is the Cascina Ri-Nascita, a project that wants to offer a safe and welcoming place for women with small or adolescent children getting out of violent domestic situations, while accompanying them on a journey of autonomy and rebirth.

Fondazione Prossimo Mio has chosen to support the initiative since its very beginning, contributing in particular to the realization of activities for the children. The objective is to aid their well-being and journey of rebirth together with their mothers. Find out more about Cascina Ri-Nascita: 

1. Dr. Kusterman, how did your dedication to helping women who are victims of violence begin? What drove you, as a gynecologist, to take this step?

A.k. In 1996, a law was passed that finally defined sexual violence as a crime against a person, and not against public morality. Immediately after and together with the general director and the medical director of the Mangiagalli hospital and the Istituto di Medicina Legale, we decided to create a help center in the biggest maternity hospital in Italy – at that time we had about 6,500 births a year, though now they are a bit fewer, about 5,800 – 6,000 a year. In this way, the SVSeD was born, and was initially dedicated to sexual violence victims. Over the years, we understood that sexual violence was a part of a larger problem: domestic violence. For this reason, shortly thereafter, we also founded the SVS Donna Aiuta Donna in order to guarantee legal, psychological, and economic help to women and the involved children. These are all indispensible tools for getting out of violent situations. Little by little this second center acquired more and more autonomy vis-à-vis the public sector center, but above all, the services offered were increased.

2. In 1996, you founded the first public sector center against sexual and domestic violence in Italy. In nearly 30 years of activity, can you share with us some data on the impact of the SVSeD center’s work? How many women and children have you helped?

A.K. Every year we follow a little fewer than 1,000 new cases. We assist many for years, given the slowness of the Italian courts. For this reason, the number is extremely high, but above all there are many of us helping these women and children. There are 50 volunteers just in SVS Donna Aiuta Donna alone in addition to the paid staff.

The violence is not only physical or sexual. It’s not just punches, beatings, and shoving. This kind of violence is almost always accompanied by psychological violence. In fact, much more than is thought, the psychological violence precedes the physical by many years. So, psychological violence is not exactly identical to physical violence. To demonstrate having gotten beaten, especially with a center such as we have in the Mangiagalli, is simpler because photos and descriptions are done of the lesions. Demonstrating that there has been psychological violence is much harder, and I can say that, in my experience, the women who are killed haven’t necessarily been beaten first. The cases we read in the newspapers from last year to this year demonstrate that the men who kill are not necessarily those who beat. On the contrary, they often have never beaten the women.

3. Cascina Ri-Nascita wants to be more than a refuge. It is a journey of autonomy and rebirth for women and children. How do you imagine the daily lives of the people living there?

A.K. It is a project that begins with the restitution of self-confidence to these women thanks to training, work, and psychological help because this is the premise. During a period of two years, if they are able to re-enter a world in which work is obviously not always protected as it will be in these first two years, that’s good. If not, for those few who are not yet ready, we will study other help mechanisms that last a little longer.

We decided to focus on unemployed women with underage children because those are the women who have more problems in the outside world to find a job that is sufficiently paid in order to support themselves and their children.

For ten nuclear families, there will be apartments in the Cascina Ri-Nascita, where they can live autonomously together with their children, but also receive educational help for their children. The whole project that we are doing together with the Fondazione Prossimo Mio is based on after-school activities for these children, so the mothers can work while someone else – in this case Campacavallo and the teachers that are hired expressly for this – takes care of their kids, so they can do both things simultaneously.

4. Fondazione Prossimo Mio chose to support the project with particular attention for the activities for children. Why is it important to take care of the littlest ones, too, in a project created for women?

A.K. It’s important to take care of the underage children of these women because if the little ones and kids grow up in an environment in which the father is violent against the mother, they unfortunately assume that a man’s abuse of his power over a woman is normal. In this way, the chain of violence isn’t broken, and it repeats in the subsequent generations. ISTAT has revealed research involving an enormous sample of women, more than 50,000, in which it is shown that the male children who witness violence have a 50% more chance of themselves becoming violent, while the female children have a more than 50% risk of choosing violent partners, as if that which had become normal in the family dynamic became normal in the adult life of these children as they grew up. The Fondazione Prossimo Mio immediately understood the gravity of this problem and the positive value that intervening has not only for the women, but also for their underage children.

The afterschool activities that we will realize will also be an opportunity for the kids in the Corvetto quarter – where the Cascina Ri-Nascita is located – in which the rate of disadvantaged youth and the abandonment of school is very high.

The objective is to help them find meaning in studying and in constructing a better future for themselves.

5. Today, Cascina Ri-Nascita is a dream that is becoming a reality. What is the message that you would like to leave for those who can contribute to constructing it together with you?

A.K. We need donations to finish the work on the farmhouse, and to launch all the planned activities: a stable for compassionate horseback riding, a day-care center for dogs, a restaurant, and a bistro. Essentially, they are monetary donations because we need to guarantee economic support (work grants) to these women in the first year of training in order to give them back real economic autonomy. Every contribution helps to transform this dream into reality.

Thank you.