Meloni's partner Andrea Giambruno criticised for Italy rape remarks

Andrea Giambruno has insisted his remarks were taken out of context

Italian TV host Andrea Giambruno has been accused of victim-blaming after he appeared to say young women could avoid rape by not getting drunk.

Giambruno, whose partner is Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, was addressing recent alleged gang rapes in Italy.

In Sicily, seven men have been accused of gang-raping a teenager, while six youths are said to have raped two young cousins in Caivano town near Naples.

Giambruno has since said his comments were taken out of context.

Prime Minister Meloni has said she will visit Caivano on Thursday to show solidarity to residents in the wake of the attack in a town that has struggled with drug trafficking and mafia-led organised crime.

The mother of one of the two girls wrote to Ms Meloni through her lawyer saying the family had received threats and abuse from their neighbourhood in the Parco Verde area of the town.

Meanwhile, the 19-year-old woman attacked on an abandoned building site in early July in the Sicilian city of Palermo has gone on social media to say she has left her home for a protected community for victims of violence.

The gang rape was filmed by her attackers and she is clearly struggling with the aftermath. She talks of "fighting a battle with my head, but I act as if nothing happened - and I'm still smiling".

Giambruno raised the issue of gang rape during a live broadcast on the Rete 4 commercial channel on Monday, when - during a conversation with a newspaper editor - they condemned the rapists as wolves.

"If you go dancing you have every right to get drunk," he told viewers. "But if you avoid getting drunk and losing consciousness, maybe you would also avoid getting into specific problems because that's when you find the wolf."

His remarks prompted an angry response.

Martina Semenzato, who heads a parliamentary inquiry into violence against women and femicide, said there was "nothing that can justify sexual violence and the victim should never be blamed, in any way."

Centre-left politician Chiara Gribaudo accused him of "victim-blaming pure and simple": never mind telling men, the real culprits, not to rape, she added.

Top social media influencer Chiara Ferragni complained on Instagram that it was not wolves that women had problems with but men.

Giambruno has since accused his detractors of taking his words out of context and exploiting them in bad faith. "I never said men are free to rape women who are drunk," he explained, adding that he had prefaced his remarks by stressing that it was an "abominable act carried out by beasts".

His partner, Ms Meloni, who is also the mother of their young daughter, has avoided commenting publicly on the outcry.

Two hundred people joined parish priest Maurizio Patriciello (C) in Caivano in a show of solidarity for victims of sexual violence

Her decision to visit Caivano, where the two cousins were attacked, came after the mother of one of the girls said in a letter through her lawyer that she did not feel safe and that her son had been robbed since the attack. The boy was the first to report the alleged abuse.

"Prime minister, we're in your hands. Take us away from this hell," she was quoted as saying.

An anti-mafia parish priest, Maurizio Patriciello, has praised Prime Minister Meloni's decision to come and said he would ask her to supply "an army of primary school teachers".

But her planned visit to Caivano, where the two young cousins were attacked, has not been universally welcomed.

She has received death threats from residents who are furious that the right-wing government is to phase out a minimum income benefit.

The citizens' income scheme was brought in by the last government but the prime minister argued it enabled thousands of Italians to not bother looking for work.

She said intimidation would not prevent her joining Italians who wanted security and the promise of a better future for their children. "In the fight against organised crime, this government will not take any steps backwards," she said.