Groping a girl okay, if it’s less than ten seconds, rules Italian court

Trigger warning: discussion of harassment, victim blaming

Protests and demonstrations are erupting in Italy after a judge cleared a man of charges of sexual harassment of a teenager because the groping had lasted “a handful of seconds”.

The survivor, a 17 year old student, took 66 year old Antonio Avola to court when he groped her in school while she was walking up the staircase with a friend in April 2022.

She recalled her trousers fell from her waist and as she was pulling them up, she felt a hand touching her buttocks and then grabbing her underwear to lift her up by an inch.

When she turned around, the caretaker brushed off the harassment by saying “Love, you know I was joking.”

Avola confessed to the groping in court but said it was a joke. Prosecutors were seeking a three year jail term if convicted.

However, the judge ruled that the grope could not be counted as harassment since it lasted “between five to 10 seconds” and was too short to be considered a crime. The judgement also ruled:

“Furthermore, it seems likely that the brushing of the buttocks was caused by an awkward manoeuvre of the defendant which, due to the dynamics of the action, was carried out while the subject was in motion.”

This ruling has outraged Italians who protested by posting 10 second videos of themselves touching private body parts along with the hashtag “palpata breve” (brief grope) and “10 secondi” (10 seconds).

Speaking to The New York Times, ‘The White Lotus’ actor Paolo Camilli, who had participated in the trend, spoke about how outrageous the ruling was.

“My first thought was, how can a person measure 10 seconds while they were being molested”, he said, further pointing out that 10 seconds can be an infinity for someone in a painful situation.

Popular Italian influencer Francesco Cicconetti slammed the ruling in a video shared to his 200,000 followers on Instagram, writing that no man is allowed to turn a woman into their property.

“Women’s bodies are not men’s property. Owned by no one but women themselves. It’s not the father who wants to hand it over to the husband, it’s not the boyfriend who wants to hide it, it’s neither the mate who wants to govern him, it’s nor the son who wants to protect him, he’s not the brother who wants to defend his honor.”

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A post shared by Francesco Cicconetti (@mehths)