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Franca Viola


Franca Viola (born January 7 1947 in Alcamo) is an Italian woman who became famous in the 1960s in Italy for refusing a "rehabilitating marriage" ("matrimonio riparatore" in Italian) with her victimizer after suffering kidnapping and rape. Instead, she and her family successfully appealed to the law to prosecute the rapist. The trial had a wide resonance in Italy, as Viola's behavior clashed with the traditional social conventions in Southern Italy, whereby a woman would lose her honour if she did not marry the man she lost her virginity to. Franca Viola thus became a symbol of the cultural progress and the emancipation of women in post-war Italy.

Franca Viola was born in the rural town of Alcamo, Sicily, the oldest daughter of Bernardo Viola, a farmer, and his wife, Vita Ferra. In 1963, at the age of 15, she became engaged to Filippo Melodia, then aged 23, but after Melodia was arrested for theft, Viola's father insisted she break off the engagement, which she did. Melodia then traveled to Germany. By 1965 Viola was engaged to another man. Melodia by this time had returned to Alcamo and was trying unsuccessfully to re-enter Viola's life, stalking her and threatening both her father and boyfriend.

In the early hours of December 26, 1965, Melodia and a group of armed companions broke into the Viola home and kidnapped Franca, in the process beating Viola's mother and also taking Franca's 8-year-old brother Mariano, who refused to let go of his sister. Mariano was released a few hours later, but Franca was held for 8 days in the home of Melodia's sister and her husband, where she was repeatedly raped. Melodia told her that now she would be forced to marry him so as not to become a "dishonored" woman, but Viola replied that she had no intention of marriage and, moreover, that she would have him sued for kidnapping and rape. Viola's father pretended to negotiate with the kidnappers, while actually collaborating with the Carabinieri police in preparing a successful dragnet operation. Viola was released and her kidnappers arrested on January 2, 1966, five days before her nineteenth birthday. She said her father asked her if she really wanted to marry Melodia and, when she said she did not want it, he told her he would do everything possible to help her.


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