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European Women's Lobby - EWL

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International Day Against Violence Against Women

EUROPEAN WOMEN's LOBBY CALLS FOR STRONGER EU COMMITMENT TO COMBAT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

November 25^th is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (declared by the UN in 1999) and starts the 16 days campaign against violence against women, which terminates on the 10^th of December (International Human Rights Day). Through the world and the EU, many women’s NGOs are participating in this campaign by organising awareness raising events and calling for better implementation of legislation. Practices, which may be qualified as torture or inhuman or degrading treatment and to which women are preponderantly exposed by virtue of their sex, such as physical violence, rape, genital and sexual mutilation, trafficking in women and girls are still common and have dramatically increased in some areas, both in quantity and intensity. All forms of violence against women (VAW), in the private and public sphere by State and non-state actors should be addressed and understood as basic violation of human rights principles.

Despite the efforts of the  UN and the Council of Europe (CoE) to compel governments into implementing their commitments to eradicate VAW, the lack of a comprehensive legal instrument on VAW at EU level results in an ad hoc approach by member states, characterised by low prioritisation of the issue. Since 1993, the Council of Europe has made the combat against violence one of its priorities, adopting Recommendations and launching in 2006 a campaign with the involvement of national parliaments and agencies to combat violence against women, including domestic violence.

EWL started to work with legal experts on the argumentation for/feasibility of a comprehensive European legal instrument to eliminate violence against women. The preliminary conclusion is that there is potentially a legal basis for demanding legislation on violence against women at EU level On International Day on Violence against Women, EWL calls on the EU to make a strong commitment to go forward, in order to press Member States of the European Union to further their commitment to combat violence against women, and to raise awareness in all EU countries about this issue. For more information, contact the EWL Secretariat at: centre-violence@womenlobby.org

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