Strasbourg, 31/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - The Council of Europe's convention against violence against women will come into force on 1 August 2014 now that Andorra ratified it on 23 April (see EUROPE 11131). It has now been signed by 23 countries and ratified by 11 of them, thus achieving the stage of being quorate. This, however, is only a first step because it has been accompanied by a rather alarming analysis of policies in place in the 47 Council of Europe member countries.
Only Germany, Andorra, Denmark and Norway have introduced measures to tackle all types of violence against women listed in the convention, while five countries (Armenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Luxembourg and Turkey) only target violence against women at home or in the family.
Domestic violence is not covered by legislation allowing criminal investigations in nine countries, six of which are EU member states: Azerbaijan, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, la Croatia, Hungary, Portugal and Slovenia.
Countries like France and Belgium come in for criticism because the number of places in sheltered housing for victims of domestic violence is below the recommended one per 10,000 inhabitants. Belgium has 0.73 per 10,000 inhabitants, and France 0.24. At the bottom of the table is Italy (0.09), the Czech Republic (0.085), Bulgaria (0.08), Ukraine, (0.04) and Poland (0.01). Norway, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Andorra, the Netherlands and Ireland have above the recommended number, three times higher for the first three countries.
Other gaps noted in the Council of Europe report include the lack of independent support services to help victims lodge complaints or give witness. This is the case in Georgia, Poland and Serbia. Andorra, Azerbaijan, Finland and Poland do not provide any protection or help to children who have witnessed violence against their mother.
Estonia and Hungary do not provide any special training for police officers and Latvia and Ukraine say that some types of sexual acts on non-consenting people are not a crime. Armenia has no criminal penalties for any of the forms of violence against women listed by the Council of Europe. The list of shortcomings is very long and the Council of Europe has announced that the study carried out in connection with the entry into force of the convention on prevention and tackling violence against women and domestic violence is a first stage in the process of setting up an independent group of experts - known as GREVIO - to report on respect of the Convention by Council of Europe member countries, as was done for the convention on tacking torture, human trafficking and corruption.
Members of GREVIO have not yet been elected but it will meet for the first time in 2015. It will hold discussions with NGOs and national parliaments and will travel to countries if insufficient information is supplied. The Council of Europe says that it intends to play its full leadership role on observance of fundamental rights with the passing of this directive that seeks to harmonise prevention, protection and sanction policies and the convention is fully and properly implemented.
The convention defines and sets penalties for the various types of violence against women and domestic violence. In order to implement the convention, participating countries need to introduce new crimes such as psychological and physical violence, sexual violence, rape, persecution, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, forced abortion and forced sterilisation. Participating countries must ensure that culture, traditions and “honour” are not used as justification for violence against women.
Link to a Council of Europe video as part of its action plan against violence against women (http://bit.ly/WK1YqS ). (VL)