In a non-legislative resolution adopted on Thursday 24 November to celebrate International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the European Parliament urged all EU member states to ratify the Istanbul Convention on violence against women.
MEPs therefore did not support an alternative resolution submitted by the ECR group, which argued that this issue should be covered within the scope of member states (It was rejected by 489 votes against 115).
On-going process. The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. (Istanbul Convention) obliges stakeholders to improve the protection of the victims of violence and prosecute those perpetrating it. It is also helps pave the way to criminalising violence against women (physical or psychological), strengthening the power of the police to remove perpetrators from their homes and set up shelters for victims. On 4 March 2016, the Commission proposed that the Union officially sign up to this international instrument (the first of its kind to be legally binding) but negotiations at the Council are progressing slowly. All member states of the European Union have signed this convention but only half of them have ratified it. Germany, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, United Kingdom and Slovakia have not yet done so.
Parliament losing patience. The resolution proposed by the EPP, S&D, ALDE, GUE/NGL and Greens/EFA groups regrets that the Council has spent so much time on the EU officially signing up to the convention. It is calling on it to speed up its work and for all member states that have not yet ratified the convention to do so. During a debate organised on Wednesday, Commissioner for Justice and Equal Opportunities Vera Jourova explained, “I am convinced that the Convention should be ratified by all member states. The EU joining is also just as important: this is not just about saying that we will delegate all our competencies. We will expand coherency within this policy at a European level”. She also regretted that the equal opportunities policy is less and less “sellable” in the different member states.
Just as in 2014, the resolution again calls on the Commission to introduce legislation “That guarantees a coherent system for collecting statistical data”, an enhanced approach from member states in the area of prevention and the elimination of violence, as well as prosecutions against these acts of violence. It also calls on the Council to “activate the bridging clause, by unanimously adopting a permanent decision on violence against women and girls (as well as other forms of violence based on gender) as one of the areas of criminality included in Article 83, Paragraph 1, of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union”.
During her closing speech to the European Parliament, Commissioner Jourova addressed a specific message to MEPs on the extreme right, “With regard to new arrivals, it is clear that violence against women is intolerable in Europe” and asserted that she would never go against this principle.
Alarming figures. According to a 2014 survey carried out by the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union (FRA), in Europe, a third of women have already experienced physical or sexual violence in their adult lives. 20% of young women (aged between 18 and 29) have experienced online sexual harassment, one in five women (18%) has been stalked, One out of 20 women has been raped and more than one out of 10 women has suffered sexual violence involving the absence of consent or the use of force. A Eurobarometer survey published on 24 November demonstrated even though a great majority of respondents consider domestic violence as unacceptable, 27% of them think that sexual relations without consent can be justified in certain circumstances.
Faced with these alarming results, the Commission made a commitment on 24 November to launch a campaign to raise awareness “Say no! Stop violence against women”. The following day, the European institutions will decorate their buildings in orange to demonstrate their support for the United Nations campaign on this theme.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) published a “Safe at home-safe at work” study on 24 November, which demonstrates how the unions are tackling the question of violence against women at work and how support in the workplace can help eliminate domestic violence. The unions point out that the European framework agreement in 2007 on harassment and violence at work gave birth to agreements throughout Europe in the sectors of trade, private security, local administration, health and education. During the International Day event, Montserrat Mir, ETUC Confederal Secretary, stated “A new point for the unions and employers to negotiate focuses on the way the victims of domestic violence can be supported in the workplace”. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)