Tue. Dec 24th, 2024

Violence against women: Dossier on the EU lawmakers’ deal

Feb 6, 2024 , , , , , , , , , , ,

6 February 2024

The Belgian presidency and European Parliament agreed on a first-ever EU law on violence against women and domestic violence. The new law lays down minimum rules concerning the definition of specific criminal offences and penalties to address this form of violence. It also sets out rights of victims of all forms of violence against women or domestic violence, and provides for their protection.

For many women in Europe, sexual violence, domestic violence, street harassment or online abuse are daily threats. Moreover, women all too often pay with their lives for relationship breakups. Even forced marriages and genital mutilation have not been completely eradicated from our society. We must put an end to this. With the new directive, the member states are taking important steps to collectively stand up against these severe crimes, both through an emphasis on prevention and consistent punishment.

Paul Van Tigchelt, Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice and the North Sea

This is a big step forward to better protect women and girls from violence, whether at home, at work, on our streets, off-line or on-line. The directive has a strong chapter on prevention to act against underlying patterns of coercion, power and control and takes specific rape prevention measures member states are sending a strong message: we no longer accept that if you are a woman you are more at risk than if you are a man.

Marie-Colline Leroy, Belgian Secretary of State for Gender Equality

Criminalisation of female genital mutilation, forced marriage and cyber crimes

The new law would criminalise the following offences across the EU:

  • female genital mutilation
  • forced marriage
  • non-consensual sharing of intimate images
  • cyber stalking
  • cyber harassment
  • cyber incitement to hatred or violence

Once adopted, the new law will set common rules on the definition of those offences and related penalties.

The directive will also introduce aggravating circumstances such as the repeated exercise of violence against women, committing an act of violence against a vulnerable person or a child and using extreme levels of violence.

Protection of victims and safe reporting procedures

The new law will also make it easier for victims of these crimes to access justice and obliges member states to provide an appropriate level of specialised protection and support.

Member states must for instance ensure that victims can report acts of violence against women or domestic violence through accessible and easy-to-use channels, including the possibility of online reporting, and to submit evidence online, at least for cybercrimes.

When children are victims of such wrongdoings, EU countries will have to ensure that they are assisted by professionals trained to work with children. And if the act of violence involves the holder of parental responsibility, reporting must not be conditional upon this person’s consent. In fact, authorities will first have to take measures to protect the safety of the child before that person is informed about the reporting.

Also, when a victim of sexual violence or domestic violence first makes contact with an authority the risk posed by the offender or suspect must be assessed. On this basis, authorities will need to provide adequate protection measures. These could include emergency barring and restraining or protection orders.

Victims privacy and right to compensation

In order to protect a victim’s privacy and prevent repeat victimisation, member states must also ensure that evidence relating to the victim’s past sexual conduct should only be permitted in criminal proceedings when it is relevant and necessary.

The directive also foresees that victims will have the right to claim full compensation from offenders for damages resulting from the offence of violence against women or domestic violence.  Victims should also be able to obtain compensation in the context of criminal proceedings where appropriate.

Helplines and rape crisis centres

According to today’s agreement, specialised support services, such as rape crisis centres, must be available to victims to offer advice and support, provide information about access to legal counselling, and provide help into finding shelters and medical care.

Member states must furthermore make a national telephone helpline available that victims of violence can reach 24/7, free of charge.

Prevention of rape

The Council presidency and EU Parliament agreed that EU countries must take appropriate actions – such as targeted awareness-raising campaigns – to prevent violence against women and domestic violence. These preventive measures are geared towards increasing awareness and understanding among the general public of the different manifestations and root causes of all forms of violence against women and domestic violence, as well as towards challenging harmful gender stereotypes and promoting gender equality and mutual respect.

Next steps

Today’s agreement will have to be approved by the representatives of EU member states at the Council. The final law is also pending adoption in Council and European Parliament.

Background

Violence against women and girls is one of the most systematic and common human rights violations globally. The directive that presidency and European Parliament agreed on will be the first legal instrument which specifically targets violence against women and domestic violence at EU level.

Source – EU Council

 

First ever EU rules on combating violence against women: deal reached

  • Measures to prevent rape and raise awareness on consent
  • Female genital mutilation and forced marriage included as crimes under EU law
  • Online rules include non-consensual release of intimate material and “cyber-flashing”
  • Specialised support for victims of sexual violence

EU legislators reached a provisional deal on rules to combat gender-based violence and protect its victims, especially women and victims of domestic violence.

The informal agreement reached by Parliament and Council negotiators on Tuesday includes measures to prevent rape, tougher rules on cyber violence, and better support for victims. For the first time, there will be EU-wide rules on the criminalisation of certain forms of gender-based violence and better access to justice, protection and prevention. Member states will aim to raise awareness that non-consensual sex is considered a criminal offence.

The new legislation will also include:
  • a longer list of aggravating circumstances for offences, including crimes against a public figure, journalist or human rights defender, intent to punish victims for their sexual orientation, gender, skin colour, religion, social origin or political beliefs, and intent to preserve or restore “honour”;
  • rules against female genital mutilation and forced marriage;
  • specific rules for online crimes, including the release of intimate material and cyberflashing;
  • improved procedures for victims’ safety and health, taking into account intersectional discrimination and access to healthcare, including sexual and reproductive healthcare services; and
  • enhanced reporting and evidence gathering by authorities.

On Parliament’s insistence, the Commission will report every five years on whether the rules should be revised.

Press conference with Parliament’s negotiators

A press conference with the rapporteurs Frances Fitzgerald (EPP, Ireland) and Evin Incir (S&D, Sweden) and the Chairs of the competent committees Robert Biedroń (S&D, Poland – Women’s Rights and Gender Equality) and Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D, Spain – Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs), is scheduled for 18:20 CET at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Find out more here.

Quotes

Frances Fitzgerald said: “For the first time, the European Union sends a clear message that we take violence against women seriously as an existential threat to our security. Together, nearly 450 million people and three institutions say that we will not stand for it. While this Directive does not address everything that Parliament would wish to, including an offence of rape based on a lack of consent, it does make important strides on prevention, protection and prosecution. Today, we take the first step towards making Europe the first continent in the world to eradicate violence against women.”

Evin Incir said:

“This agreement is a catalyst for positive change, a commitment to continuously improve, and shows our collective responsibility to combat violence against women. But our fight is far from over. I am very disappointed that some member states chose to stand on the wrong side of history and block the inclusion of a consent based rape legislation. Yet I maintain hope that by fostering a cultural shift around consent in Europe, we can pave the way for the legislation to be adopted in the future. We will persist fighting for women’s rights until societal change is unmistakable.”

Next steps

Parliament and Council will have to formally approve the agreement. The new rules will come into force twenty days after their publication in the EU Official Journal, and member states have three years to implement the provisions.

Further information

 

Commission welcomes political agreement on new rules to combat violence against women and domestic violence

The Commission welcomes the political agreement reached today between the European Parliament and the Council on the Commission’s proposal for a Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence from March 2022. The Directive is a milestone – the first comprehensive legal instrument at EU level to tackle violence against women, which is still too pervasive in the European Union. It follows the commitment taken by President von der Leyen in her Political Guidelines to do everything possible to prevent violence against women, including domestic violence, to protect victims and punish offenders.

The Directive criminalises physical violence, as well as psychological, economic and sexual violence against women across the EU, both offline and online. Female genital mutilation as well as forced marriage will be criminalised as stand-alone crimes.  Moreover, the most widespread forms of cyber-violence will be criminalised under the new rules, including the non-consensual sharing of intimate images (including deepfakes), cyber-stalking, cyber-harassment, misogynous hate speech and “cyber-flashing”. These criminalisations will in particular help victims of these forms of cyberviolence in Member States that did not yet criminalise these acts. This is an urgent issue to address, given the exponential spread and dramatic impact of violence online.

One key to combat cyber-violence is digital literacy. That is why the new Directive also requires measures to develop skills that enable users to identify and address cyber violence, seek support and prevent its perpetration.

While no agreement was found on the criminalisation of rape based on lack of consent at Union level, proposed by the Commission, the Directive includes strong prevention requirements to, first, promote the central role of consent in sexual relationships and, second, take targeted measures for the prevention of rape.

The new Directive also provides for measures to prevent all types of violence against women, including domestic violence and sets new standards for victims’ protection, support, and access to justice, for example, by obliging Member States to establish helplines and rape crisis centres to support victims.

As proposed by the Commission, the Directive will require Member States to ensure safe, gender-sensitive and easier reporting of crimes of violence against women and domestic violence – including an option to report online. This will tackle the under-reporting of violence against women that still exists today. Moreover, law enforcement authorities will have to assess if the offender might do further harm to the victim and, in that case, take necessary protection measures, such as the prohibition to enter the home of the victim.

The respect for the victims’ privacy in judicial proceedings is another key point of the new rules.

Finally, to ensure better coordination and cooperation, Member States will be encouraged to gather the most important data on violence against women and foster coordination and exchanges of best practices and cooperation in criminal cases, including via Eurojust and the European Judicial Network.

Background

As stated in the EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025, the European Commission is committed to preventing and combating gender-based violence. On 1 October 2023, the Commission became a party to the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence – the Istanbul Convention. The EU is now bound by ambitious and comprehensive standards to prevent and combat violence against women in the area of judicial cooperation in criminal matters, asylum and non-refoulement and with regard to its public administration. This includes funding, policy, and legislative measures. The EU’s accession to the Istanbul Convention is a milestone in the EU’s efforts to realise gender equality.

In autumn 2023, the Commission established an EU network on the prevention of gender-based violence and domestic violence. The first in-person meeting took place in Brussels on 29-30 November 2023. The network provides the space for Member States and stakeholders to discuss new and emerging issues relating to violence prevention, as well as exchange knowledge and good practices. The next meeting will take place in April.

On 6 February, the Commission adopted a proposal to update the criminal law rules on child sexual abuse and sexual exploitation. These revised rules expand the definitions of offences and introduce higher penalties and more specific requirements for prevention and assistance to victims. They are complementary to the proposal for a Regulation on preventing and combating child sexual abuse online adopted in May 2022. This Regulation will oblige providers to prevent, detect, report, and remove child sexual abuse material on their services. It will also create a European Centre to prevent and combat child sexual abuse as a new EU agency. The proposal is in negotiations with the co-legislators.

The Commission has already achieved most of the actions under its first EU Strategy on victims’ rights (2020-2025), to ensure that all victims in the EU can fully benefit from their rights under EU law. On 12 July 2023, the Commission adopted the proposal for a Directive amending the 2012 Victims’ Rights Directive, the main horizontal instrument on victims’ rights. The proposal aims to further strengthen the rights of all victims of crime in the EU, including the rights of the most vulnerable victims.

The Commission provides funding for projects and organisations to tackle gender-based violence through the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme. A new call for proposals, amounting to almost EUR 25 million opened for applications on 12 December 2023. Funds will be directed towards transnational actions on tackling gender-based violence, prevention of gender-based violence in the domestic sphere, in intimate relationships and the protection of and support for survivors of gender-based violence including child protection systems.

The majority of victims of trafficking registered in the EU are women and girls. The EU’s legal and policy framework is set out in the Anti-Trafficking Directive. In April 2021, the Commission presented the EU Strategy on combating trafficking in human beings (2021-2025), which emphasises the protection of victims at all stages, taking into account, in particular, women and child victims, and trafficking for sexual exploitation. As one of the key actions of the EU Strategy, the Commission proposed a revision of the Anti-Trafficking Directive in December 2022, on which a political agreement was reached between the co-legislators in January 2024.

Internationally, the EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy (2020-2024) as well as the Action Plan on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in External Action 2021 – 2025 (GAP III) stand as the EU’s ambitious framework for achieving progress on gender equality and women’s empowerment. The EU, as co-leader of the Generation Equality Forum’s Action Coalition on Gender-Based Violence, will continue its efforts to curb gender-based violence, including sexual violence, throughout the world, including in conflict and emergencies. For example, the global Spotlight Initiative launched by the EU and the UN, with an initial EU investment of €500 million, aims to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls.

EU financial commitments for the prevention and response to gender-based violence went from an annual average of EUR 91 million in 2014 to EUR 282 million in 2022.

More Information

Quote(s)

Today´s proposal brings significant changes for all women in Europe. It is an important step against many forms of violence in real world but mainly it brings a major change in an online world by criminalizing certain forms of cyber-violence. The latest developments show it is high time. Non-consensual sharing of intimate images, including AI-generated ones, may lead to mental health issues and even to suicides in extreme cases; cyber-stalking and cyber-harassment wipes out women from public space. This Directive would ensure that the authors of such a coward behavior don’t go unpunished.

Věra Jourová, Vice-President for Values and Transparency

Today’s agreement on a Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence is a victory for gender equality throughout the European Union. This Directive extends protections beyond physical violence to include psychological, economic, and sexual violence. I extend my congratulations to the Council and the European Parliament for today’s progress. Nonetheless, our journey must continue to ensure an EU wide recognition of rape as a non-consensual act.

Helena Dalli, Commissioner for Equality

 

Deal on the EU directive to fight violence against women: just a first step for the S&Ds!

Tonight, the negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council reached an agreement on the first ever EU law to combat violence against women.

Although the agreement is not as ambitious as the S&Ds would have wanted, they decided to support it, as it provides concrete progress for victims of gender-based violence. For the first time, the EU will have a legal instrument to combat gender-based cyber violence, like cyberstalking and cyber-flashing. The new directive will make female genital mutilation a criminal offence, punishable across the EU. Forced marriage will also be criminalised at an EU level. In addition, children who have witnessed violence at home will be, in most cases, considered victims of domestic violence. The directive has a comprehensive approach by focusing on prevention, protection, prosecution and access to justice.

However, The Socialist and Democrats regret that the Council rejected our demand to include the crime of non-consensual sex as rape. Some member states argued that there was no legal basis for that, when in fact what was most lacking was a political will by leaders like French president Macron and minister for justice Buschmann in Germany.

S&Ds urge member states to bring their rape legislation in line with the Istanbul Convention and will continue to fight for the criminalisation of rape based on the lack of consent at an EU level. This is why we have added a strong review clause in the directive opening up for the Commission to put forward a new legislative proposal on rape after the evaluation.

As Socialists and Democrats, we are determined to continue the fight until women everywhere in the EU are protected from all forms of gender-based violence.

Evin Incir, S&D MEP and the European Parliament’s co-chief rapporteur on gender-based violence in the committee on civil liberties (LIBE), said:

“S&Ds are at the forefront of the battle for a Europe where all women can live free from fear. It is after years of our calls that the European Commission has proposed the first ever European legislation aimed at protecting women from violence. Today, we have taken one step forward, and we can only aim higher from now on – and we will!

“With the new directive, we will have stronger legislation when it comes to forced marriage, female genital mutilation and cyber violence against woman. However, it is outrageous that the alliance formed by two liberals – president of France Macron and German justice minister Buschmann – with the illiberal prime minister of Hungary, Orbán, has prevented the progress on consent-based rape legislation. We did not win this battle but we are definitely not giving up.

“However, we managed to include in the final agreement provisions on the prevention of rape based on a lack of consent, as well as a strong revision clause opening up for the possibility for the European Commission to put forward a new legislative proposal, hopefully including rape. We will not rest until all EU countries have a consent-based rape legislation.”

Pina Picierno, European Parliament vice-president and the S&D shadow rapporteur on this file for the committee on women’s rights and gender equality (FEMM), added:

“Every six hour a woman is killed in Europe. This is a social tragedy; a pandemic of men’s violence against women, fuelled by the culture of patriarchy that we are committed to end.

“The agreed EU directive will first of all increase protection of women living in the five EU member states that have so far refused to ratify the Istanbul Convention.

“However, we were hoping, and we fought, for a more ambitious result, and for a directive that could better protect European women. The clear responsibilities for this lie with the Council. Personally, I am disappointed and unsatisfied.

“The fight is not over. We will not rest until all member states get rid of outdated laws defining rape based on whether physical violence or threat or coercion is involved, because laws guide attitudes and behaviour in society. And we want to leave a society free from rape, and where everyone’s sexual autonomy and bodily integrity are respected and valued.”

 

Assita Kanko (ECR Group): New EU Directive must better protect women against female genital mutilation.

On International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (6 February), Assita Kanko said: “We must work hard towards a world in which every woman and girl can lead a dignified life. That is my ambition as a co-negotiator”.

Female genital mutilation leads to the partial or complete removal of the external genitalia of the girl or woman. It is a practice that still occurs far too often worldwide, including on European territory. Often, the consequences of this mutilation are felt by the women for the rest of their lives, both physically and mentally. ECR Group Vice-Chair Assita Kanko, who underwent this mutilation at the age of five and experiences its consequences, has been fighting against this horrific practice for years. In the European Parliament, Kanko continues this battle as a co-negotiator for the new Directive to combat violence against women and domestic violence.

Assita Kanko hopes for strict, harmonised rules in the European Member States against the practice of female genital mutilation, so that every girl is spared this horror. That no more girls’ lives are destroyed, simply because they are girls. “Genital mutilation is an assault on the body, mind, and autonomy of girls. It is also a violation of European core values” Kanko said.

Currently, only eighteen member states have specific legislation regarding female genital mutilation. Nine Member States do not have separate criminal law provisions for this. A survey by the European Commission also revealed that in many EU Member States, there is no obligation for doctors to report female genital mutilation, and this often does not happen due to fear of reprisals. In addition, in many Member States, there are too few specialised service providers to assist victims.

“Female genital mutilation is an extreme form of violence and discrimination against women and girls. We must work hard towards a world in which every woman and girl can lead a dignified life. A world in which every woman and girl has the right to make her own decisions. Where they can live without pain and shame. We can build that world. A world where the health and well-being of every woman is protected and valued. That starts with successful integration, with better laws, and with better enforcement of the law. Tradition or religion should never be above the law.

“Therefore, with the Directive to combat violence against women and domestic violence, we must make concrete progress in the way we protect women from violence and give them hope and freedom,” concludes Kanko.

 

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