In Italy, 95 women have been killed so far this year, 80 of them by the hands of a male partner or relative, a report by Italy's Economic and Social Research Institute EURES showed.

The latest case involved a 30-year-old pregnant woman, who was attacked with knife by her lover in Sicily on last Friday.

Overall, 133 women were murdered in 2018 against 123 in 2017, according to the latest available annual statistics published by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) on Monday.

This number, according to the ISTAT, was the third lowest in the European Union (EU).

Yet, women killed by husbands, male partners, or former partners made 54.9 percent of the total 133 victims, while those killed by a male relative accounted for 24.8 percent of the total.

Together, these two subgroups made the large majority (79.7 percent) of all women killed in 2018.

POLICE DATA WORRYING

The problem went far beyond femicides, as a specific report released by Italian police on Friday showed.

The number of female victims of abuse was on the rise in the country, "growing from about 68 percent (of all abuses reported) in 2016 to 71 percent in 2019," the report said.

This happened in spite of numerous awareness campaigns, laws that toughened penalties for perpetrators of this kind of violence and improved protection for victims, and renewed efforts by feminist civic groups in latest years.

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