ROME: A prominent television journalist faced a backlash in Italy on Friday after suggesting that a recent series of killings of women could be the fault of the victims.

A woman is killed on average every three days in Italy, and a spate of recent murders where the main suspect is her partner or an ex have become front-page news.

"In the last seven days there have been seven women killed allegedly by seven men," presenter Barbara Palombelli said during Thursday's long-running "Forum" programme on Mediaset's Rete 4 channel.

"Sometimes it's also fair to ask, were these men completely out of their heads, completely confused, or was there also exasperating and aggressive behaviour on the other side as well?" she asked.

Her comments sparked outrage on social media and beyond.

"When the media claim that a femicide can be the effect of the victim's behaviour, we are... victim blaming, which is precisely one of the causes of femicides and the lack of adequate sanctions and laws," wrote Amnesty Italy on Twitter.

"Violence against women is never justified," added Equalities Minister Elena Bonetti, saying it was an "abhorrent and unacceptable scourge that is still all too present in our country".

Femicide commonly refers to the killing of a girl or woman by a partner or family member.

Since January, 83 women have been killed in Italy, according to the interior ministry, with more than half killed by their current or former husbands or boyfriends.

It is not a new problem in the country of around 60 million people.

The Eures research institute says that 91 women were murdered in the first 10 months of 2020, and 99 in the same period in 2019. In many cases, their deaths were the culmination of numerous incidents of abuse.

In the five years to 2019, 538,000 women were the victims of physical or sexual abuse by their partners, according to Italy's national statistics agency Istat.