Mara Carfagna

After having studied dance and piano, she participated in the Miss Italy contest in 1997, finishing in sixth place.[5] About the experience she later said: "That competition makes you as a woman, it matures you...all that stress, that desire to win, it makes you understand who you are."[6]

Later she started working in television for the company Mediaset, controlled by the family of Silvio Berlusconi. From 2000 to 2006 she participated as a showgirl in the television program La domenica del villaggio ("Sunday in the Village") with Davide Mengacci. In 2006 she led the program Piazza grande ("Main Square") together with Giancarlo Magalli.[7] Carfagna has also been part of the television programs I cervelloni, Vota la voce and Domenica in.[8]

Mara Carfagna has posed for Maxim calendar.[9] She states that she is a firm believer in family values, and claimed in an interview that she once refused to take part in a movie directed by erotic filmmaker Tinto Brass, when she was twenty years old.[10]

Mara Carfagna and the Minister of Youth Policy Giorgia Meloni with the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano in 2009

Carfagna entered politics in 2004, and became responsible for the women's movement in the political party Forza Italia.[5][11] In the elections of 2006 she was elected into the Chamber of Deputies for Forza Italia, and in the 2008 elections – running as the third candidate from The People of Freedom in the district "Campania 2" – she was reelected.[12] When she first entered parliament Berlusconi jokingly commented that Forza Italia practiced the law of primae noctis; the right of a feudal lord to take the virginity of his female subjects.[13] As a deputy she was secretary of the Commission for Constitutional Affairs,[5] and has been described as a diligent, hard-working parliamentarian.[14] On 8 May 2008 she was appointed Minister for Equal Opportunity,[15] in the fourth cabinet of Silvio Berlusconi, an appointment that was widely publicised internationally, with focus on her special background.[2][6][16]

In September 2008, Carfagna introduced proposal for a new law making street prostitution a crime, with fines for both clients and prostitutes. The bill was her first major initiative as a minister. She said that at present in Italy, "as in the great majority of Western countries", brothels and the exploitation of prostitutes by pimps were illegal but prostitution as such was not. She described street prostitution as a "shameful phenomenon".[17]

In 2009 she became the first political promoter of the law against stalking offence. This law was finally approved on 23 February 2009, introduced as a package of bills known as the Decreto Maroni. In the same year she signed a campaign against homophobia in Italy, with television spots, images on magazines and wall attachments on cities.[18]

She has participated in many international conferences, met the UN Secretary General, has intervened four times to the General Assembly, where she promoted an international moratorium against FGM. She organized the first international conference on violence against women in the context of the G8, which was held in the city of L'Aquila, in Italy, in July 2009.[19]

Mara as Member of the Chamber of Deputies in 2013

In 2010 during political debate for the International Women's Day celebration Mara made a political gaffe, claiming that women gained the right to vote in Italy in 1960 (while they did in 1946) and that the law that rules intrahousehold relationship was reformed in 1970 (while it was in 1975).[20] In the 2010 Campania regional election Mara Carfagna had a record result of 55,695 preferences.[21] In 2011, Mara proposed a law, which was passed, that provided quotas for women on the boards of companies, which has allowed to involve a larger number of women in the Italian economic system. It approved funding for childcare facilities and in support of motherhood and family that made it possible to increase by a few percentage points the availability of places for working mothers.[22] That same year Carfagna also supported a bill against homophobia, in which homophobia was considered as an aggravating circumstance in bullying events. This bill was then rejected by the People of Freedom majority in the Parliament, causing Carfagna's disappointment.[23]

In 2013, Silvio Berlusconi founded Forza Italia, an ideological revival of the eponymous party that existed in the 1994–2009 period.[24] Mara joined the party, following Berlusconi. In the same year she began a relationship with ex–deputy Alessandro Ruben.[25] In the 2016 Italian local elections, Carfagna was the most voted Forza Italia candidate in Naples, with more than 5,500 personal preferences.[26]

In November 2018, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Mara Carfagna launched a campaign called "Non è normale che sia normale" ("It's not normal that it's normal") involving many parliamentarians of all political parties, VIPs and personalities of sport and entertainment.[27]

In August 2019, the Codice Rosso ("Red Code") legislation, proposed by Carfagna, enters into force in Italy to combat violence against women with more efficient investigations and more severe penalties.[28]