LTTA Romania

4th Learning Teaching Training Activity – Romania

Presentations

The story of Gessica Notaro (ITALY)

Who is Gessica?

Gessica Notaro is a former Miss Italy finalist and model who worked with sea lions and dolphins at an aquarium in Rimini on Italia’s Adriatic coast.

The 28-years-old was crowned Miss Romagna in 2007 – the region where she lives – and then landed appearances on TV as a showgirl before working as a presenter.
She was victim of violence by her boyfriend of age 29.

What happened to Gessica Notaro?

Months after breaking up with Tavarest, the model from the Adriatic resort of Rimini, she complained to police that she was being stalked and a restraint order was imposed on him. On 10 January 2017 the aspiring model and singer was doused in hydrochloric acid and badly scarred.

She had several operations to reconstruct her face and now wears a patch over her left eye. For months she was unable to return to her main job as a sea-lion trainer. But when she posted images of her bandaged face on social media, her plight caught the public imagination and highlighted violence against women in Italy.

She appeared on national TV where she denounced her former boyfriend: “I want you to see what he did to me. This isn’t love”, she said.
“While the acid ate away my face I was on my knees praying to God to take away my beauty but to leave me with my sight”.

How did she rebuild her life?

Now familiar to Italians with her distinctive glittery eyepatch, Gessica Notaro has become a public symbol of the fight for violence against women. In 2018 she took part in the famous national TV show “Ballando con le stelle” and she appeared on a talk show when she stated: “I’m not as strong as I look. I’m a crazy hypochondriac but when something this serious happens to you, you have to choose to live or die and I chose to live.”

Italy - School presentation

Sexual Abuse (ITALY)

Alberto Genovese, a high-profile Italian web entrepreneur and start-up founder, was found guilty of raping and drugging two young models by a Milan court on Monday and sentenced to eight years, four months in jail at the end of a fast-track trial.

The first case regards a 23-year-old woman who was raped in a villa in Ibiza in July 2019, while the second victim was an 18-year-old who suffered sexual violence at Genovese’s Milan home in October 2020.

I would like to explain what happened to the 18-year-old girl. The girl arrives at 20:30 with a friend, takes drugs and a couple of hours later ends up with him in a bedroom downstairs guarded by a bodyguard, who never moves from there and who prohibited anyone from entering because “Alberto doesn’t want to be disturbed”.

The 18 year old leaves that room only 24 hours later, around ten o’clock in the evening of October 11, half naked, without a shoe, injured. The day after, he asked a technician to delete the images taken from the camera of his bedroom, because “he had a party and had exaggerated”. The court found him guilty of raping the women after living them a mix of ketamine and cocaine to make them unconscious.