Family Loyalty Made The Calabrian Mob Strong, But Its Treatment Of Women Was Its Undoing

This long-read is a fascinating account of the role of women took on in the Italian Mafia.

For years, the Italian government was unable to prosecute the Calabrian mob. Family members were protecting each other, and witnesses were vanishing.

Italian prosecutors agreed that 'Ndrangheta women were victims, often killed in honor killings or married off for alliances, but none of them considered those women as to be of much use in their fight.

In 2009, a prosecutor named Alessandra Cerreti proved different.

She knew how patriarchies often belittle women while at the same time rely on them.

"Italian men underestimate all women," she said.

There was just an assumption that no one, but especially women, would talk about their own family.

They were wrong. Two women, trying to protect their children from their own family, decided to speak and try to put their families in jail.

One of them wrote a letter to the Palace of Justice, assuring that her life experience had strengthened her as a woman:

“I found the strength to make this important decision, to defy a fearsome, powerful, and unforgiving family. I knew the risks for me and for my loved ones. But in the end I did it.”

The story is long and complicated, but definitely worth reading it. Not only because of the specific case against the Calabrian Mob, but also because shows how often women are underestimated. It happened to Cerreti as a prosecutor, and to the women who were considered useless victims.