European Commission organised a Conference on Violence against Women in Bruxelles on the 25 and 26 November, in cooperation with the Belgian Presidency of the Council of Europe.

The Conference followed the Summit of EU Women Ministers on Violence against Women organised by the Belgian Presidency on the 24 November. The Conference gathered around two hundred participants of various profiles such as parliamentarians, experts and NGO members active in the field of violence against women. Nataša Bijelić was participant of the Conference on behalf of CESI.

The Conference consisted of four panels focused on the following issues:

-         Origins, causes and social aspects of violence against women

-         Legal aspects of combating violence against women

-         Special forms of violence (EU and international experience)

-          EU strategy in combating violence against women

The Conference started with Viviane Reding, the Vice President of the European Commission, who emphasized the commitment of the EC to address and solve the problem of violence against women.

Problems emphasized on the Conference included recognizing the lack of a common (European) definition on violence against women which makes it difficult to collect comparative data; insufficient reports on violence against women (with higher reporting rates in Scandinavian countries than in South East Europe); weaknesses in national action plans deficient in concrete measures such as activities carried out within a time schedule, budget and evaluation of implemented policies; limited information on resources aimed at policies active in the field of violence against women.  

The role of the EU funds has also been pointed out as key elements in combating violence against women and especially in Southern and Eastern Europe.

Myria Vassiliadou ingeniously remarked that the EU has regulations on the size of tomatoes but not on problems such as violence against women and therefore, issued the following demands of the European Women's Lobby regarding the problem of violence against women:                                                                                                                              

-         European Action Plan on violence against women

-         2013 as the European year dedicated to violence against women  

-         More funds aimed at women's NGOs active in the field of violence

-         Directive and a common legally binding instrument, respectively

-         Data collection on violence

-         Gender-based budgeting

Rosa Logar from WAVE (Women Against Violence Europe), talked about the expectations of the civil society and stressed the need of adopting European security measures regarding, for example, access barring at EU level in order to prevent the possibility that access barring in one country is not valid in another EU country which puts the victim of violence into jeopardy regarding safe travelling.  

In her closing speech, Eva Britt Svensson, President of the Committee for Women's Human Rights and Gender Equality of the European Parliament, emphasized once again the  need for a common legally binding instrument that will address gender based violence at the EU level.

Speeches and presentations of the presenters can be found here.