• Viola is an app that helps women feel safer when they are alone at night.
• The service allows users to be accompanied via video call by qualified volunteers.
• A simple gesture that certainly doesn't uproot violence against women, but restores a sense of community.

In Italy in 2024, more than one hundred women were killed. One hundred and thirteen, to be precise. Ninety-nine of them within family or intimate relationships. According to the Non una di meno Observatory, 70 femicides have been confirmed so far in 2025. These are numbers that weigh heavily: more than one woman every three days was the victim of a partner, an ex, a man who mistook possession for love. The numbers change, but the story doesn't: the news repeats itself with the same structure, the same sense of helplessness.

Furthermore: in 2024 in Italy there were 6,587 reported cases of sexual violence or rape, a 6 per cent increase on the previous year. The "Indagine sicurezza fuori casa" by Censis notes that many women perceive streets, public roads and parks as places where the risk of sexual harassment is real, and that a significant percentage of them report having experienced at least one sexual harassment outside the home. Yet behind the statistics lie the folds of daily life, those in which violence does not always manifest itself as a blow, but as a subtle fear that follows you even when no one is following you.

You only need to be a woman who has walked alone at night to know what that means. Keys gripped between your fingers, quickened pace, a mental map of well-lit streets, fake phone calls to give the impression you're not alone. It's not paranoia, it's collective memory: the sum of stories heard, personal experiences, shared episodes. It is the echo of a culture that has still not learned how to guarantee safety and respect in a systemic way. In this climate of widespread vulnerability, the simplest gesture — going home — can become an act of resistance.

Viola, an app for women's safety

It is from this awareness that Viola was born — an app that does not promise to solve gender-based violence, but to reduce one of its most tangible consequences: fear. Viola is a free video call service available 24 hours a day that allows anyone who feels unsafe to be accompanied virtually, yet concretely, by a selected and trained volunteer or supporter. It's a way of not feeling alone, of having a voice on the other side of the screen that talks to you, watches you, knows where you are and can, if necessary, alert law enforcement.

How it works is simple: you can access the service through the official app or by contacting Viola Walk Home on Instagram. You start a video call or book one for a specific time. On the other end, a supporter answers — a woman who accompanies you calmly and attentively, staying connected until you reach your destination. The call is not a technological filter but a living presence, a companion who can read silences and recognise signs of distress. And, should the situation deteriorate, the volunteer has immediate access to location data and can contact the relevant authorities, providing precise details. On the surface, it is a simple video call. In reality, it is a gesture of mutual trust, a political and human act at once. Because behind Viola lies a network of women — and men too — who have decided to transform fear into an alliance, insecurity into attentiveness, technology into a tool for solidarity.

The idea behind the Viola app

Viola was born from an intuitive yet revolutionary idea: you can't control everything, but you can choose not to be alone. Safety, more often than not, is not a matter of physical strength or self-defence tools, but of human contact, of perception. Knowing that someone is watching you in real time, that they have access to your location, that they can intervene if something happens, completely changes the way you experience space. It gives you back the ability to walk, to breathe, to stop seeing every shadow as a threat.

It is important to say this: Viola is not a definitive solution. An app is not enough to erase centuries of gender-based violence, nor to resolve the lack of education in respect, legal protection, or cultural prevention. But it is a step, and like every step, it has value. It is an immediate response to a real need, one that acts where the state and society so often arrive too late: in the time between fear and violence. Its effectiveness is not measured only in the emergencies handled, but in the invisible relief felt by those who, thanks to a video call, manage to cross a car park, an empty street, a peripheral neighbourhood without feeling exposed. It is the contemporary translation of an age-old gesture: "I'll walk you home". Only now it happens on a screen, with a connection, a face, a voice.

Technology as an ally against gender-based violence

In this, Viola also represents a broader message: that technology can be empathetic, can become a tool for care rather than mere consumption. It can forge connections, protect, listen. It is a form of innovation that starts from the ground up, from people's real lives, not from laboratories or research centres. An innovation born of a collective necessity — that of feeling safe in public space — and one that restores a sense of community in a world that too often merely observes the problem from a distance. Gender-based violence is not an isolated phenomenon but a systemic one: it concerns the structure of power, language, roles, and cultural models. And yet, every time someone chooses to accompany another person, to not leave them alone, a small part of that system cracks. This is what Viola does: it builds an invisible network connecting those who are afraid to those who want to help, uniting technology and compassion in a gesture of presence.

With 25 November approaching — the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women — remembering projects like this one means remembering that the struggle is not only protest or commemoration, but also daily construction. That safety is not a privilege but a right. And that solidarity can take new forms, even digital ones, without losing its human power. Because at its heart, Viola's promise is simple: no one should have to walk home alone anymore. Even when the road is dark, even when fear comes knocking again, somewhere there is a voice ready to answer. And to say: "I'm here. I see you. I'll walk you home."