The Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (CETS No. 210) is the first legally binding instrument to address violence against women and domestic violence in Europe. It contains a wide range of obligations aiming to prevent violence, protect its victims, prosecute the perpetrators, implement coordinated policies and promote international co-operation. It also envisages a monitoring mechanism. The convention recognizes violence against women as a violation of human rights and is a major step forward in achieving gender equality in law and in fact.
The Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (also known as the Istanbul Convention) was adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 7 April 2011. The Convention entered into force on 1 August 2014 and has currently been ratified by 22 states. This Convention constitutes a crucial development as regards the movement to combat gender-based violence, as it sets new legally binding standards in this area. This book provides a detailed analysis of the Convention and its potential to make an impact in relation to the specific issue of domestic violence. The book places the Istanbul Convention in context with regard to developments relating to domestic violence as a human rights issue. The background to the adoption of the Convention is examined, and the text of this instrument is analysed in detail. Comparative analysis is engaged in with reference to the duties that have been placed on states by other bodies such as the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the European Court of Human Rights. Comparisons are also drawn with the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women and with the relevant provisions of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. An in-depth examination of the advantages of the adoption of the Istanbul Convention by the Council of Europe is provided along with a detailed analysis of the challenges faced by the Convention. The book concludes with a number of brief reflections in relation to the question of whether the adoption of a UN convention on violence against women may be a possible development, and the potential such an instrument holds, in the context of domestic violence.
Violence against women and children is a serious public health concern, with costs at multiple levels of society. Although violence is a threat to everyone, women and children are particularly susceptible to victimization because they often have fewer rights or lack appropriate means of protection. In some societies certain types of violence are deemed socially or legally acceptable, thereby contributing further to the risk to women and children. In the past decade research has documented the growing magnitude of such violence, but gaps in the data still remain. Victims of violence of any type fear stigmatization or societal condemnation and thus often hesitate to report crimes. The issue is compounded by the fact that for women and children the perpetrators are often people they know and because some countries lack laws or regulations protecting victims. Some of the data that have been collected suggest that rates of violence against women range from 15 to 71 percent in some countries and that rates of violence against children top 80 percent. These data demonstrate that violence poses a high burden on global health and that violence against women and children is common and universal. Preventing Violence Against Women and Children focuses on these elements of the cycle as they relate to interrupting this transmission of violence. Intervention strategies include preventing violence before it starts as well as preventing recurrence, preventing adverse effects (such as trauma or the consequences of trauma), and preventing the spread of violence to the next generation or social level. Successful strategies consider the context of the violence, such as family, school, community, national, or regional settings, in order to determine the best programs.
"Violence against women undermines women's core fundamental rights such as dignity, access to justice and gender equality. 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 underreported to the authorities. The scale of violence against women is therefore not reflected by official data. This FRA survey is the first of its kind on violence against women across the 28 Member States of the European Union (EU). It is based on interviews with 42,000 women across the EU, who were asked about their experiences of physical, sexual and psychological violence, including incidents of intimate partner violence ('domestic violence'). The survey also included questions on stalking, sexual harassment, and the role played by new technologies in women's experiences of abuse. In addition, it asked about their experiences of violence in childhood. Based on the detailed findings, FRA suggests courses of action in different areas that are touched by violence against women and go beyond the narrow confines of criminal law, ranging from employment and health to the medium of new technologies."--Editor.
Violence against women is one factor in the growing wave of alarm about violence in American society. High-profile cases such as the O.J. Simpson trial call attention to the thousands of lesser-known but no less tragic situations in which women's lives are shattered by beatings or sexual assault. The search for solutions has highlighted not only what we know about violence against women but also what we do not know. How can we achieve the best understanding of this problem and its complex ramifications? What research efforts will yield the greatest benefit? What are the questions that must be answered? Understanding Violence Against Women presents a comprehensive overview of current knowledge and identifies four areas with the greatest potential return from a research investment by increasing the understanding of and responding to domestic violence and rape: What interventions are designed to do, whom they are reaching, and how to reach the many victims who do not seek help. Factors that put people at risk of violence and that precipitate violence, including characteristics of offenders. The scope of domestic violence and sexual assault in America and its conequences to individuals, families, and society, including costs. How to structure the study of violence against women to yield more useful knowledge. Despite the news coverage and talk shows, the real fundamental nature of violence against women remains unexplored and often misunderstood. Understanding Violence Against Women provides direction for increasing knowledge that can help ameliorate this national problem.
This Commentary provides the first comprehensive analysis of the Council of Europe (CoE) Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (the Istanbul Convention). It offers a complete article-by-article guide to the Convention with reference to the explanatory report, the findings of the monitoring body (GREVIO) and relevant State practice.
A health-care provider is likely to be the first professional contact for survivors of intimate partner violence or sexual assault. Evidence suggests that women who have been subjected to violence seek health care more often than non-abused women, even if they do not disclose the associated violence. They also identify health-care providers as the professionals they would most trust with disclosure of abuse. These guidelines are an unprecedented effort to equip healthcare providers with evidence-based guidance as to how to respond to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women. They also provide advice for policy makers, encouraging better coordination and funding of services, and greater attention to responding to sexual violence and partner violence within training programmes for health care providers. The guidelines are based on systematic reviews of the evidence, and cover: 1. identification and clinical care for intimate partner violence 2. clinical care for sexual assault 3. training relating to intimate partner violence and sexual assault against women 4. policy and programmatic approaches to delivering services 5. mandatory reporting of intimate partner violence. The guidelines aim to raise awareness of violence against women among health-care providers and policy-makers, so that they better understand the need for an appropriate health-sector response. They provide standards that can form the basis for national guidelines, and for integrating these issues into health-care provider education.
This report investigates causes, forms and remedies. It explores the relationship between violence against women and poverty, discrimination and militarisation. It highlights the responsibility of the state, the community and individuals for taking action to end violence against women.
Women have made significant inroads into political life in recent years, but in many parts of the world, their increased engagement has spurred attacks, intimidation, and harassment. This book provides the first comprehensive account of this phenomenon, exploring how women came to give these experiences a name: violence against women in politics. Tracing its global emergence as a concept, Mona Lena Krook draws on insights from multiple disciplines--political science, sociology, history, gender studies, economics, linguistics, psychology, and forensic science--to develop a more robust version of this concept to support ongoing activism and inform future scholarly work. Krook argues that violence against women in politics is not simply a gendered extension of existing definitions of political violence privileging physical aggressions against rivals. Rather, it is a distinct phenomenon involving a broad range of harms to attack and undermine women as political actors, taking physical, psychological, sexual, economic, and semiotic forms. Incorporating a wide range of country examples, she illustrates what this violence looks like in practice, catalogues emerging solutions around the world, and considers how to document this phenomenon more effectively. Highlighting its implications for democracy, human rights, and gender equality, the book asserts that addressing this issue requires ongoing dialogue and collaboration to ensure women's equal rights to participate--freely and safely--in political life around the globe.
