EWL press coverage

Cut it out

The EU needs binding legislation
to crack down on violence against
women, argues Rada Boric, a member of the EWL Executive Committee.

On 8 March 2011, the people of Europe and
the world celebrate the 100th international
women’s day. On this occasion, the EU
also marks one year since the adoption of
council conclusions calling on the European
commission to develop a comprehensive strategy
to tackle widespread violence against women. For the
European Women’s Lobby (EWL) and its members across
Europe, it was a hard blow that the celebrations of a centenary
of hard work and concrete achievements should be
overshadowed by fears that one of the most important EU
initiatives of the new millennium is being quietly sidelined
by the commission, and that women are to continue to be
denied one of their most basic of human rights, that to
protection from violence.

Violence against women affects approximately 45 per
cent of all women across Europe. An estimated fifth of
women in the EU suffer from violence within the home and
more than one in 10 women is a victim of sexual violence
involving the use of force. In the UK, 80,000 women experience
rape or attempted rape per year, in Ireland, one in five
women is raped in marriage and in France, one woman is
killed every three days by her partner. As the 2006 Daphne
project on the cost of domestic violence in Europe shows,
domestic violence alone costs EU member states as much as €16bn every year – or €1m every half hour. The project also
highlights that the annual budgets of EU member states
for prevention programmes of violence against women are
1000 times less than this figure. This is despite consistent
Eurobarometer survey results highlighting widespread
concern for the prevalence and scope of violence against
women, including within the family.

Violence against women is a political issue, both the
cause and consequence of gender inequality. In addition to
the direct impacts on individuals and the aggregate social
costs, male violence against women shapes women’s place
in society. It affects their access to employment and education,
integration into social and cultural activities, economic
independence, participation in public and political life and
decision making, health and relations with men. At the same
time, inequality between women and men creates the conditions
for male violence against women and legitimises it.

To date, the EU has no binding legislation in place to
deal with this most pervasive human rights abuse within
its borders. The last few years have nevertheless witnessed
an increased political willingness to change this, with multiple
calls from the European
parliament for action, the prioritisation
of the issue by the
trio presidency, council conclusions
mandating the European
commission to devise a strategy
on violence against women
and consider legal instruments,
and numerous commitments to
this effect by the EU executive.
In parallel, the European
Fundamental Rights Agency and
European Institute for Gender
Equality have launched initiatives
to gather much needed comparable European data on the issue, and the Daphne
programme has built up a solid foundation of expertise and
good practices throughout the Union in the prevention of
violence against women. The time is therefore ripe for a
comprehensive approach to ending violence against women
within the EU’s borders, with, as its starting point, a broad
European legal definition of violence against women that
would affect criminal and civil law definitions, in order
to ensure a coordinated approach and the harmonising of
domestic legal systems.

One hundred years since women’s voices were first recognised
by their governments, and more than half a century
since the founding of a European Union which sets equality
between women and men at its very core, it is high time for the EU to take legal action to put an end to this most
intolerable of violations of women’s basic human rights.
At least half of the European population avidly awaits the
commission’s proposal to this effect.

Download the article in PDF format or the full issue of the Parliament Magazine.

Latest video

EWL event "Progress towards a Europe free from all forms of male violence" to mark the 10th aniversary of the Istanbul Convention, 12 May 2021.

Facebook Feed

Get Involved