Calling on us to be loud and united
‘Violence against women and girls is not accidental, it is structural.’
Violence against women and girls remains invisible or is normalised.
How much more evidence do decision-makers need to take action?
How many more women should be beaten, raped, killed, prostituted, harassed, psychologically abused, before Europe finds it unacceptable?
The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) held an international conference and demonstration in Brussels last week attended by more than 350 experts, professionals, decision-makers, women’s rights defenders and activists from all over Europe.
They called for:
The recognition, by the EU and its Member States, of all forms of male violence against women were part of a continuum of violence against women because they are women;
The ratification and implementation of the Istanbul Convention by the EU and all EU member states;
An EU strategy and directive criminalising all forms of male violence against women and girls, and providing assistance and support to all women and girls victims;
An EU coordinator to end violence against women and girls, within the umbrella of the European Commission’s work on equality between women and men; and
Systematic consultation of and sustainable funding for women’s organisations providing support to women and girls victims, and developing advocacy and awareness raising campaigns, at EU, national and local levels
This event marked 20 years of action by the EWL’s Observatory on Violence Against Women and Girls.
This is a network that has played a key role in advising the EWL about the reality of violence against women in the European Union (EU) and fuelled EWL’s advocacy messages and demands.
It was created in 1997 to monitor the commitments made by the EU member states after the Beijing Conference on women’s rights in 1995.
As a political body, the EWL’s Observatory ensures that violence against women and girls is high on the political agenda and that decision-makers are accountable for their commitments.
It was thanks to its Observatory that the EWL was able to present the first European data on domestic violence in 1999.
But despite progress over the last decades on equality between women and men, there is not a single country in the world where women and girls are free from male violence, and there is not a single area in any woman’s life where she is not exposed to the threat or reality of acts of male violence.
One in three women in the EU, or 62 million women, has experienced physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15.
That is why the European Women’s Lobby created this factsheet, ‘Disrupting the continuum of violence against women and girls’, with content based on the contribution of the experts in the EWL’s Observatory on violence against women.
“We are far from a Europe where all women and girls can live a life free from violence,” the EWL’s president, Edith Schratzberger-Vecsei, explained.
“1 in 3 women is a victim of male violence in her lifetime. 50 women die every day in Europe. A man rapes a woman every 8 minutes.
“Women and girls are trapped in prostitution markets, are victims of female genital mutilation, and face street harassment every day.
“All forms of violence against women and girls have the same goal: to silence women, maintain them in a subordinate place, and to maintain hierarchical roles between women and men.”
And twenty years since the Observatory was established, EWL members welcomed the European Commission making 2017 “The EU Year of Focused Action to End Violence Against Women and Girls”.
It is important that the European Union is ready to accede to the Istanbul Convention, the 2011 Council of Europe Convention that is the first legally binding treaty in Europe that criminalises different forms of violence against women and domestic violence.
“While we acknowledge this progress, we today challenge Europe to ratify, implement and invest in the Istanbul Convention, while recognising and drawing upon the expertise of women’s organisations,” Iliana Balabanova-Stoicheva, EWL’s vice-president, said.
“Violence against women and girls happens every day, everywhere. It is a European issue, which requires a European answer. And this answer cannot be just a reform, it needs to bring real change.”
This need for real change was why the EWL event invited representatives of the different European institutions to present how they have committed to addressing male violence directly and to mainstream the issue and its impact across all European policy areas.
For the EWL, a 25 year-old organisation which brings together the women’s organisations from all over Europe, no outcomes would have happened without the work of those women’s organisations and the courage of victims and survivors to speak out and break the silence around violence against women and girls.
The power of women’s organisations supporting survivors and campaigning for change was made visible through the interventions of several activists who presented impactful initiatives, such as the instrumental everyday support work provided by sexual violence centres or women’s houses, innovative artistic projects raising awareness of sexual exploitation, or women’s tribunal’s bringing the voices of women and girls to the public sphere.
“It is not true that we don’t speak out,” Fiona Broadfoot, survivor of the sex trade and founder of the survivor-led project Build A Girl in the UK, said.
“The reality is that our voices are not heard and not valued equally. This is why violence against women is a political issue.
“Only the ones who want to maintain inequalities and gender injustice have something to loose when male violence is abolished and mentalities are shifted.”
Gloria Steinem gave the keynote speech, and along with 350 participants from across the EU and Belgian women’s organisations, she marched in the streets of Brussels to demand real action and real change.
This moment of solidarity sent an important signal to the European Union about the commitment of women’s organisation to continue to advocate for a Europe free form all forms of male violence against women and girls.
“More than poverty, natural resources, religion or degree of democracy, violence against females is the most reliable predictor of whether a nation will be violent within itself or will use violence against another country — and gender violence has become so great that for the first time, there are now fewer females on earth than males,” Steinem said.
“Violence against women and girls is not accidental, it is structural. It depends on all of us,” Edith Schratzberger Vecsei said, as demonstrators raised their hands and shared slogans and songs with the motto ‘Loud and United’.
“Let us continue to disrupt the silence and the indifference!”