GENDER VIOLENCE: LEGAL, SOCIETAL ASPECTS. AN EUROPEAN VISION

Abstract

Violence against women undermines women’s core fundamental rights such as dignity, access to justice and gender equality. The FRA report is based on interviews with
42,000 women across the 28 Member States of the
European Union (EU) who were asked about their experiences of physical, sexual and psychological violence,
including incidents of intimate partner violence (‘domestic violence’). It shows that violence against women, and
specifically gender-based violence that disproportionately
affects women, is an extensive human rights abuse that
the EU cannot afford to overlook. For example, one in
three women has experienced physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15; one in five women has experienced stalking; every second woman has been confronted
with one or more forms of sexual harassment. What
emerges is a picture of extensive abuse that affects many
women’s lives but is systematically under-reported to the
authorities.
At the same time, European Human Rights Court
(ECtHR) has since held in its case law, which is binding
on the States Parties, that gender-based violence is to be
considered as covered by the prohibition against torture
and inhuman or degrading treatment under Article 3 of
the European Convention on Human Rights Convention
(ECHR), and as a violation of the respect for private and
family life under Article 8 of the ECHR. The Istanbul
Convention, ratified by European Union at Strasbourg
on 13 June 2017, is based on the understanding that a
certain type of violence is a manifestation of historically
unequal power relations between women and men. The
Convention requires the States Parties to condemn all
forms of discrimination against women and to take legislative and other steps to prevent them. For this reason,
the Convention includes a strong link between gender
equality and combating violence against women, approving the necessary special measures to prevent and protect
women from gender-based violence. The due diligence
that the States Parties are to exercise in the prevention,
investigation, punishment and reparation for genderbased violence committed by private individuals is based
on the consideration that even though a State is not responsible for individual acts of violence, it is obliged to
prevent acts of violence between private persons.