A young woman was gang raped by several North African migrants in the northern Italian city of Turin earlier this month in a heinous attack that has only just come to light.
The 27-year-old victim, known only as Laura, reported the brutal assault that occurred at around 5 p.m. on Oct. 17 in the city’s Parco del Valentino, according to the Corriere Torino news outlet.
It is alleged she was approached by a man of Arab appearance, who approached her and offered assistance as she searched for an ATM.
“I was looking for an ATM, but then I came across a young boy, around 18, with an Arab accent who asked me if I needed anything,” she told the Italian publication.
The teen promised to guide her to a nearby cash machine, but instead led her to a desolate area of the park.
He proceeded to steal her cell phone and ran off, luring her into an abandoned building previously used as a nightclub called Club 84. Upon entry, she was accosted by several other men of North African origin, who surrounded her.
While two men held her down, the others proceeded to rape her, including the initial Arab-looking teen.
The victim, originally from Latin America, told the police she heard one of the accomplices tell the initial attacker, “You’re a man now.”
Laura lost consciousness and later awoke in a hospital after being found by paramedics, half-naked and visibly injured.
The incident has spurred a swift response from local authorities. Laura has since provided investigators with details that have helped identify some suspects, and her father has called for harsh punishment, describing his daughter as traumatized and withdrawn since the attack.
This case has reignited national debate over public safety and crime rates involving migrant populations. In another recent case, a 14-year-old girl in Bolzano was allegedly raped by a 40-year-old Pakistani immigrant, bringing further scrutiny to Italy’s justice system and its handling of cases involving foreign perpetrators.
League leader Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister whose party came to prominence in the country’s northern provinces where the attack took place, expressed his frustration over perceived leniency by the courts, calling for stricter immigration control and harsher punishments.
“Let’s see if there will be a judge in this case too who will force us to keep this precious foreign ‘resource’ in Italy too,” he wrote in a social media post, alluding to the the recent decision by a Rome court to block the deportation of illegal migrants to asylum processing centers in Albania.
The latest attack comes after journalist Francesca Totolo cited statistics from the Italian interior ministry in her new book which translates as ‘Women’s Lives Matter’ which revealed that a total of 11,141 Italian women were victims of rape by foreigners in Italy between 2018 and 2023.
“In the European countries most affected by migration flows, foreigners are relatively overrepresented among the perpetrators of crimes against women, from murder to sexual violence,” she explained in an interview with the Breizh-Info Totolo.
Despite only making up 9 percent of the Italian population, foreign nationals are six times more likely to be involved in sexual crimes, Totolo stated, criticizing a perceived bias among the mainstream media which she accused of giving less coverage to attacks involving asylum seekers or refugees.