Le strade libere le fanno le donne che le attraversano. [Eng. “The free roads are made by the women who cross them”. From Italian women association Non una di meno, 2017].

Advanced research carried out by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime published in 2018 found that women and girls consistently accounted for most of the reported cases of trafficking and sexual exploitation. In Milan, the National Union of Women (Unione femminile Nazionale in Italian) was founded in 1899 to defend women’s rights. Their archive, preserved in Corso di Porta Nuova 32, contains documents and materials such as magazines, images, posters, and minutes that prove their work on the territory starting from the foundation of a Committee within the association, which listens and welcomes victims of trafficking. Together with it, the foundation of the Mariuccia Asylum in 1902 contributed to the fight against the phenomenon of trafficking in women in the city.
Particularly books and articles such as Esistere come donna by Maura Palazzi and the book Il dilemma della cittadinanza. Diritti e doveri delle donne by Gabriella Bonacchi published in 1993. Complementary, the research collects and analyses the Periodicals published over the years by the UFN, concerning the trafficking in women in Milanese spaces after the regulation of the prostitution in Italy in 1860.
This thesis aims to explore the architectures around sex work and women’s movements from 1900 to 1939 in the city of Milan. Specifically, the building of the association, a brothel in a famous neighbourhood in the city and the Mariuccia Asylum.
Overall, the thesis sheds light into the spaces related to the work of the association UFN and sex workers at the beginning of the 1900 to finally contribute to document the history of women in architecture in Milan.