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16.04.2019
Zero tolerance regarding violence against women
We cannot accept that women and girls are still exposed to domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence. Violence against women is not a private issue. It is an extremely serious crime. The EPP Group has a zero tolerance policy towards gender-based violence inside and outside Europe. We pushed for the creation and proper use of legal tools victims of violence can use to protect themselves. We have increased funding for projects in Europe that deal with the protection of women and we have asked for the EU to fund similar projects in developing countries where problems with trafficking, sexual exploitation, genital mutilation and child marriages are significantly more acute. We have also been regularly putting these issues on the agenda, repeatedly urging all EU countries to combat stereotypes and sexism against women and girls.
The EPP Group has always placed victims of violence on top of our agenda. Since 2011, thanks to us, victims have a right to be protected by an official European protection order. This legal instrument guarantees that a victim of violence, typically victims of home abuse or stalking, are equally protected even when they move or travel to another Member State. Victims have also been legally protected around the EU since 2015 when new rules, which the EPP Group negotiated and which define victims’ rights and the support they must receive regardless of where the offence took place, their nationality or residence status, entered into force. Victims now have the right for free of charge shelter or psychological support. Communication of authorities with victims must be available in many languages and forms so that even a child or a person with disability can easily understand where to get help. This applies also to families of deceased victims.
Our work, however, did not stop there. Two years after the rules came into force, some EU countries have not applied them or have been using the legislation only partially; thus, we called for further actions. We put a light on the lack of Member States’ actions and suggested steps that should be taken in all countries to guarantee that victims of violence are victimised for a second time because of a lack of help. Every victim must have access to justice and to adequate, professional and free of charge legal aid. They must know where to seek help and what their rights are. This information should be easily accessible in all EU languages.
The Council of Europe Istanbul Convention - combatting violence against women and domestic violence - which entered into force five years ago, is the first international legal instrument that criminalises violence against women. It applies a holistic approach, addressing changing attitudes and combatting gender-stereotypes and discrimination against women and girls. Thanks to our efforts, the European Parliament formally requested all Member States to ratify the Convention and recommended steps on how to prevent violence, how to fight against discrimination and how to make this problem truly visible in the media. We will continue with these efforts and work towards the EU adopting as soon as possible dedicated legal rules on the prevention and suppression of all forms of violence against women.
In the EU, up to 55% of women have been sexually harassed. The EPP Group has not only been calling for the implementation of existing legal frameworks preventing harassment in all Member States (EU rules defining equal treatment of men and women in employment), but also addressed this phenomenon within the European Parliament. Thanks to the work of the EPP Group, the European Parliament has established a dedicated body dealing with harassment complaints between Parliamentary Assistants and Members of the European Parliament. We helped to launch confidential reporting, as well as awareness raising campaigns aimed at preventing and combatting harassment so that the principle of dignity at work and a zero tolerance approach would become norms in the European Parliament.
Women and girls represent 68% of victims of trafficking and 95% of victims trafficked for sexual exploitation. EU citizens represent almost half (44%) of trafficked people in the EU. With the EU Anti-Trafficking rules from 2011, law enforcement and justice authorities across Member States had to step up cooperation and duly enforce existing legislation to catch those involved in this heinous crime, and offer effective and rightful protection to the victims. However, as there rules have not been fully functional in most of the countries, we want the European Commission to propose changes to the law in order to create hotlines for victims, free legal assistance and representation as well as psychological and medical support to be provided to all victims of trafficking.
One in every three girls in developing countries is married before turning 18. This problem also affects Europe. The EPP Group actively proposed a number of initiatives, such as more money for child marriage prevention programmes focused on education and social and economic programmes for out-of-school girls or legal counselling. We insist that the EU develops external policies and political dialogues that target the prevention of child marriage within, e.g., Trade for All or Generalised Scheme of Preferences+ strategies. Ending this practice is crucial for the development of gender equality and has been at the centre of EPP Group external actions.
The grim reality is that an estimated 125 million living women and girls have undergone some form of female genital mutilation – many of them suffer severe emotional and physical consequences. The EPP Group regularly reclaims the attention of the European Parliament on this issue on the occasion of the international day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. We question the Member States to demonstrate how active they are in fighting this practice - and request them to ban it completely.
For the next Multiannual EU Budget, the EPP Group requested almost EUR 430 million to be dedicated to equality, rights and gender equality and the specific funding programme Daphne that aims to contribute to the protection of children, young people and women against all forms of violence and attain a high level of health protection, well-being and social cohesion.
We also made sure that these goals received a separate financial envelope within EU broader rights and values and ensured a financial programme so that money to fight violence against women will not be used anywhere else. Victims deserve more projects, such as specialised support for victims of violence in national health care systems or the integration for young people who have been the victims of violence, which have been funded from the EU in the past.
One in 10 women have experienced some form of sexual violence from the age of 15, and one in 20 have been raped. One in five women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from either a current or previous partner, and one in 10 women indicate that they have experienced some form of sexual violence by an adult before they were 15 years old. Many of these go unreported. The EPP Group believes we cannot waste another minute to fight these heinous numbers. It is time to give a voice to those women and girls so as to break the vicious circle of silence and fear and shift the guilt from the victims to the perpetrators. Too many women and girls are still being harassed, abused and raped in Europe’s in public places - at home and now even on social media. The EPP Group is fully committed to zero tolerance against gender-based violence. We stand for the eradication of all forms of violence against women and consider this a central issue to achieve women’s rights and equality between women and men.
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