European Union
Although there is relatively little European Union (EU) law that
deals specifically with domestic violence, the obligations
imposed by the EU’s legal framework regarding violence against women would govern Member States’ obligations
with regard to domestic violence.
While not legally binding, a resolution issued by the European Parliament
does indicate that criminalization of domestic violence is an appropriate
way for Member States to fulfill their legal obligations under EU law.
In its Resolution
on the report from the Commission to the Council, the European
Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the
Committee of the Regions on the state of women’s health in
the European Community
(COM(97)0224 C4-0333/97), Official Journal C175, 21 June 1999,
the European Parliament called on Member States to “make domestic
violence against women, including rape within marriage and sexual mutilation,
a criminal offence and to set up services to help women who are victims
of this kind of violence.”
Although it has not yet become law, the European Parliament and European
Council have proposed a new directive that, like the United States’ Violence
Against Women Act, would provide victims of domestic violence with
the ability to retain their EU residency even after divorce from
their EU resident spouses. Article 13(2) of the Proposal
for a European
Parliament and Council Directive on the right of citizens of the
Union and their family members to move and reside freely within
the territory
of the Member States
(COM/2001/0257), Official Journal C 270 E, 25 September 2001, provides
that “divorce or annulment of marriage shall not entail the loss
of the right of residence of an EU citizen’s family members who
are not nationals of a Member State where . . . (c) this is warranted
by particularly difficult circumstances.” The accompanying explanatory
memorandum explains that “the wording in the Article is vague
and is meant to cover, in particular, situations of domestic violence.”
In Opinion
of the Economic and Social Committee on the “Proposal for
a European Parliament and Council Directive on the right of citizens
of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely
within the territory of the Member States” (COM(2001)257),
Official Journal C149, 21 June 2002, the Economic and Social Committee
criticized the wording of Article 13(2) and unduly vague and recommended
“that the wording . . . be more explicit, referring, inter
alia, to family, domestic or gender violence, both psychological
and physical in nature.”
Finally, although also non-binding, the Council of the European
Union has issued a report containing draft
Council conclusions on review
of the implementation by the Member States and the EU institutions
of the Beijing Platform for Action
(13348/02), 12 October 2002, with regard to the issue of domestic
violence. The report, to be reviewed by the Social Questions Working
Party in
late October 2002, includes draft Council conclusions relating
to domestic violence indicators and list of indicators prepared
by the Danish presidency
for measuring Member State compliance with the domestic violence
provisions of the Beijing Platform for Action.
Council of Europe
Although the Council of Europe (COE) has yet to create a binding instrument
concerning domestic violence, the problem has been receiving increasing
attention and both the COE and its Council of Ministers have issued
a number of recommendations on domestic violence.
The COE’s work on the issue of domestic violence began with
Recommendation No R (85) 4, adopted by the Committee of Ministers
in 1985. Recommendation No R (85) 4 was followed by Recommendation
No
R (90) 2 on social measures and family violence. (These documents
can be ordered from the Equality
Division of the Council of Europe.)
Violence against women, including domestic violence, was also a subject
of the Third, Fourth and Fifth European Ministerial Conferences. The
subject of the Third Conference in Rome in 1993 was “Strategies
for the elimination of violence against women in society: the media
and other means.” At the conclusion of that conference, the Ministers
adopted a declaration that recommended that the COE draft and implement
a plan of action to combat violence against women.
The COE established a Group of Specialists to investigate the issue
and produce the Plan of Action. The Group of Specialists’ final
report, Equality
Between Women and Men: Priorities for the Future
(EG-S-FP (99) 1), describes efforts that have been undertaken in
Europe to combat violence against women, discusses the success
of these efforts
and obstacles to success, evaluates options that are available
to enforce anti-discrimination provisions, and makes recommendations
for future
action.
The Plan
of Action to Combat Violence Against Women (EG-S-VL (98)), June 1998, was finalized in 1998. The report
describes
the Group of Specialists’ findings with respect to the nature
of violence against women, the scope of the problem, the work that
has been undertaken, and current challenges and problems. The report
also describes the COE’s Plan of Action for Member States. The
Plan of Action recommends a number of strategies to combat domestic
violence, including legislative, judicial and law enforcement reforms.
The Plan also emphasizes the importance of prevention, education, assistance
to victims and treatment of perpetrators.
The Declaration
on Equality Between Women and Men as a Fundamental Criterion
of Democracy
(MEG-4 (97) 18), was developed at the Fourth European Ministerial
Conference on equality between women and men in Istanbul on 13-14
November 1997.
In this document, the Ministers called on the COE to prepare an
instrument setting forth the COE’s position on domestic violence, and recommended
that Member States work to reduce and eliminate men’s violence “by
initiating education ensuring respect of the other person and as concerns
violent men, by supporting practical and therapeutic initiatives.”
Recommendation No R (2002) 5, The
Protection of Women Against Violence,
was adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 30 April 2002. In
that resolution, the Committee “[r]eaffirm[ed] that violence towards
women is the result of an imbalance of power between men and women
and is leading to serious discrimination against the female sex within
society and within the family” and “[a]ffirm[ed] that violence
against women both violates and impairs or nullifies the enjoyment
of their human rights and fundamental freedoms.” The Recommendation
called on Member States to:
-
Review their legislation and policies with a view
to [ensuring the fulfillment of women’s rights];
-
Recognise that states have an obligation to exercise due diligence
to prevent, investigate and punish acts of violence, whether those
acts are perpetrated by the state or private persons, and provide protection
to victims;
-
Recognise that male violence against women is a major
structural and societal problem, based on the unequal power relations
between
women and men and therefore encourage the active participation
of men in actions aiming at combating violence against women;
-
Encourage
all relevant institutions dealing with violence against women
(police, medical and social professions) to draw up medium-
and long-term co-ordinated action plans, which provide
activities for the
prevention of violence and the protection of victims;
-
Promote
research, data collection and networking at national and international
level;
-
Promote the establishment of higher education programmes and
research centres including at university level, dealing with
equality issues,
in particular with violence against women;
-
Improve interactions
between the scientific community, the NGOs in the field, political
decision-makers and legislative,
health,
educational, social and police bodies in order to design
co-ordinated
actions against
violence;
-
Adopt and implement the measures described
in the appendix to this recommendation in the manner they consider
the
most appropriate
in
the light of national circumstances and preferences,
and, for this purpose, consider establishing a national plan
of action
for combating
violence against women . . . .
In an Appendix, the Recommendation listed a number of specific steps
that could be taken by Member States to combat violence against women.
The Recommendation made clear that domestic violence was included in
the definition of violence against women.
The Council of Europe’s (COE) report, Gender
Equality: a core issue in changing societies
(MEG-5 (2003) 3), a document developed at the Fifth European Ministerial
Conference on Equality between Women and Men, held in Skopje on
22-23 January 2003, sets forth the Committee of Ministers’ recommendations
to the Steering Committee for Equality between Women and Men on violence
against women. The third objective outlined in the document is preventing
and combating violence against women. Towards this goal, the Council
recommended that the Committee develop COE norms and standards on violence
and continue to develop activities to combat violence against women.
The
roles of women and men in conflict prevention, peacebuilding and
post-conflict democratic processes—a gender perspective
(MEG-5 (2003) 4), sets forth the COE’s recommendations developed
through the Fifth European Ministerial Conference on Equality between
Women and Men, held in Skopje on 22-23 January 2003. As part of these
recommendations, the COE calls on governments to “raise awareness
on the violation of the human rights of women during and after conflicts,
and on the increase of domestic violence.”
In April 2000, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
adopted Recommendation
1450 on violence against women in Europe. In this Recommendation,
the Parliamentary Assembly called on the Committee of Ministers to
create
a European program to combat violence against women, with the aim
of, among other things, “bringing in legislation outlawing all forms
of domestic violence; establishing legal recognition of marital rape
and making it a criminal offence; ensuring greater protection for women,
for example by means of orders restraining violent husbands from entering
the marital home and measures to properly enforce penalties and sentences;
[and] ensuring greater flexibility as regards both access to justice
and the availability of various procedures, with provision for ex officio
action by the authorities, in camera hearings and court benches made
up equally of female and male judges.”
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