Marking the Worldwide Day for the Elimination of Violence towards Girls on Friday (25 November), the Fee referred to as for the graceful adoption of the directive on combatting violence towards ladies and the EU’s accession to the Istanbul Conference.
Within the EU, one in three ladies aged 15 or over have skilled bodily and/or sexual violence, in keeping with a 2020 factsheet from the Fee. Gender-based violence is chronically under-reported: solely a few third of girls who’re bodily or sexually abused by their companions contact the authorities.
Through the plenary debate on Wednesday, Fee urged stakeholders to “easily” transfer ahead with two proposals to make sure ladies “cease being murdered in silence”: The 2022 directive on combatting violence towards ladies and home violence and the EU’s accession to the Istanbul Conference.
The Istanbul Conference is a human rights treaty towards gender-based violence of the Council of Europe. It was signed by the EU in 2017, although has but to be ratified.
The proposals are wanted “greater than ever”, Equality Commissioner Helena Dalli stated during the plenary debate.
Whereas all member states deal with violence towards ladies and home violence in laws, scope and implementation varies significantly throughout the bloc. Presently, no particular authorized instrument exists on the EU degree.
The EU gender equality technique 2020-2025 discovered that gender-based violence and harassment have reached alarming ranges, and stay under-reported and neglected.
“The EU condemns all types of violence towards ladies and ladies,” the European Fee and Excessive Consultant/Vice President, Josep Borrell, stated in his assertion on Thursday.
“It’s unacceptable within the twenty first century that girls and ladies proceed to be abused, harassed, raped, mutilated or pressured into marriage,” he stated.
Fee President Ursula von der Leyen’s highlighted in her political tips for the present Fee’s mandate that “the EU ought to do all it could actually to forestall and fight violence towards ladies, defend victims and punish offenders”.
Fee’s proposal
In March 2022, the EU govt proposed its directive on combatting violence towards ladies and home violence.
“Throughout each the French and Czech presidencies, intensive work has taken place which enabled the completion of the primary studying of the proposal,” Mikuláš Bek, Czech Minister for European Affairs, advised European lawmakers on Wednesday.
“The work on the proposal will proceed through the phrases of the incoming presidency with a view to the swift this attainable progress,” he stated.
The directive enshrines in EU legislation minimal requirements to criminalise sure types of violence towards ladies, defend victims and enhance entry to justice, help victims and guarantee coordination between related providers and work on prevention.
It proposes the criminalisation of crimes comparable to rape, feminine genital mutilation, non-consensual sharing of intimate or manipulated materials, cyber harassment, and cyber incitement to violence or hatred.
It additionally proposes to make EU-wide knowledge assortment an obligation, as violence is each under-reported and under-recorded, and the info just isn’t simply comparable between EU international locations. The most recent and solely EU-wide survey was printed in 2014.
Stakeholders’ tackle the directive
Girls In opposition to Violence Europe (WAVE), a community of over 160 NGOs, criticised the proposal on Friday, saying that it “shies away from together with femicide because the felony offence it’s”.
The European Girls’s Foyer (EWL) launched a press release calling the European Parliament and the EU Council to step up their efforts to reinforce and swiftly undertake the directive.
“EWL is conscious that this directive is an important piece within the EU legislative puzzle on violence towards ladies. Nonetheless, the puzzle is not going to be full till there’s a constant strategy to deal with the total continuum of violence towards ladies and ladies together with our calls for for sturdy laws towards sexual exploitation of girls and ladies,” stated Réka Sáfrány, EWL president.
Istanbul Conference
Discussions on full accession to the Istanbul Conference are nonetheless going down within the EU Council’s working celebration on Elementary Rights, Residents’ Rights and the Free Motion of Individuals.
“We’d like pressing ratification of the Istanbul Conference in all member states,” Roberta Metsola, European Parliament president advised the plenary. The Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia are but to ratify.
“No extra excuses defend ladies. We’d like motion. Now. We’d like correct safety frameworks. We’d like extra convictions of those that prey on females and we have to finish the remaining institutional blindness to the endemic violence towards ladies,” Metsola stated.
Concluding the EU’s accession is a key precedence for the Fee. In her political tips, Von der Leyen stated: “If the accession stays blocked within the Council, I’ll think about tabling proposals on minimal requirements concerning the definition of sure forms of violence and strengthening the Victims’ Rights Directive. I’ll suggest so as to add violence towards ladies to the listing of EU crimes outlined within the Treaty.”
A brand new helpline
On Thursday, the Fee introduced the institution of a standard EU helpline quantity for victims of violence towards ladies – 116 016, as introduced in the directive on combatting violence towards ladies and home violence.
The quantity can be linked to nationwide helplines by means of which help providers for victims are supplied. Thus far, 15 member states have dedicated to connecting their present helpline for victims of violence towards ladies to this quantity.
A extra in depth listing of nationwide and regional helplines could be accessed right here.
[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]
