Statement by Dr. Dubravka Šimonović, Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its cause and consequences at “The EU accession to the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence”

Joint hearing LIBE-FEMM

29 November 2016

Thank you inviting me to participate at this joint LIBE-FEMM mini hearing on the EU accession to the IC. This marks my first participation in my capacity as UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women before the EU since my appointment in August last year.

Being the first UN SRVAW from a EU country, Croatia, I am honoured to be here with you today during the 16 days of activism on violence against women and to contribute to the ongoing debate on the EU accession to the IC form the perspective of my mandate.

The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women was established in 1994, with the aim of integrating violence against women into the UN Human Rights agenda.

We have gone a long way and now VAW is defined as human rights violation and form of discrimination against women and has been fully integrated in the UN RH agenda and recently in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda as a specific target and prerequisite for sustainable development for all.

This mandate provides thematic and country specific reports, and recommendations on actions needed to combat violence against women, its causes and consequences at international, regional and national levels.

It operates within the legal framework provided by the global instruments like the CEDAW convention and regional instruments like the Istanbul Convention and in my work I advocate their ratification and full incorporation and implementation.

Today in my capacity as a UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, I would like to express the view that accession of the EU to the Istanbul Convention will send a strong political signal that violence against women should be eradicated from the EU and all its Member States.

I am convinced that even this discussion on the EU accession to the Istanbul Convention as a such will speed up its ratification by its Member States that have not yet done so but also by other non-EU Member States.

There is an important precedence on acceptance of the international treaties by the EU with respect to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and on role of the European Parliament (Resolution of 7 July 2016) on the implementation of  the Concluding Observations of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
Let me also stress that all EU Member States are States parties to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the CEDAW and the Istanbul Convention are fully compatible overlapping and complementary instruments.

In my previous capacities I had a privilege to contribute to the development of both instruments. Being a member of the CEDAW Committee for 12 years and its Chairperson, I have contributed to its progressive interpretation. On the regional level I was member of the COE Task (2006-2008) that proposed adoption of the new European convention on violence against women and later on a Co-chairperson of the CoE ad hoc committee that elaborated the Istanbul Convention, from 2008 to 2010.

The CEDAW addresses all forms of discrimination against women, including violence against women, while the Istanbul Convention addresses specifically violence against women as a human rights violation and form of discrimination against women and as such contributes to elimination of other forms of discrimination against women.

Consequently ratification of the Istanbul Convention by the EU will be a step forward in combating violence and in achieving gender equality.

On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women I issued a joint call, together with the Inter- American Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa, United Nations Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice, Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) Committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI) Group of Experts on Action against VAV and DV of the  IC (GREVIO) to monitor the prevention of, and end gender based violence.

Our monitoring work at both global and regional levels has shown that:

• Femicides or gender related killings of women, and sexual and other forms of gender based violence against women and girls are widespread and persistent human rights violations.
• There is a lack of implementation of the global and regional instruments on women's rights and violence against women and the failure to turn these into real protection of every woman and girl.
• There are significant gaps and shortcomings in national legislation and prevention systems often combined with tolerance of such violence, exacerbated by a lack of reliable and disaggregated data.

Based on joint understanding that Violence against women is rooted in inequalities and discrimination against women and its prevention and eradication must be grounded in gender equality and empowerment of women, we have called All States (in collaboration with the civil society) to intensify efforts on : 

• PREVENTION:  fully endorsing, incorporating and implementing global and regional treaties on women's rights and violence against women (CEDAW and its Optional Protocol, the Belém do Pará Convention, the Maputo Protocol and the Istanbul Convention)
• PROTECTION: providing shelters and safe places, crisis centers, protection orders and services for women and their children, survivors of violence and integrating gender perspective in the work of legal professionals and law enforcements officials dealing with violence against women; and 
• PROSECUTION, including sanctions of perpetrators and providing redress and reparations for the victims and their families.

For today's discussion I would like to focus on the part of the call related to "endorsing, incorporating and implementing global and regional treaties on women's rights and violence against women", which in the EU context are the CEDAW and the Istanbul Convention.

As highlighted in the concluding observations from the CEDAW committee, to which all EU Member States are reporting, as well as the Special Rapporteurs recommendations following EU country visits, there is a significant gap in incorporation and implementation of accepted international standards.

For this reason, the EU ratification of the Istanbul Convention, in parallel with its Member States, will also address this most problematic link between international law on human rights and national law - and secure stronger incorporation and implementation of the Istanbul Convention  that would  ultimately result in a stronger  protection of women against violence against women across the EU.

Let me briefly mention my mandate’s ongoing initiative focused on prevention of femicide.

Last year, on 25 November 2015, on the Iinternational Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, I called upon all States to establish a “Femicide Watch” or a “gender-related killing of women watch”.  In this year’s joint statement all global and regional mechanisms supported and welcomed the initiative.

I have called on States to collect and publish, on the International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women, data on the number of femicides, or gender related killings of women disaggregated by age and ethnicity of victims, and the sex of the perpetrators, and, most importantly, indicating the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. Information concerning the prosecution and punishment of perpetrators should also be collected and published.

Furthermore, each case should be analyzed. Those are not only numbers but real women victims of this most brutal form of violence, and often their children, committed against them by their intimate partner or family members. Such analysis of each case though number of cases should be done in order to determine shortcomings of the national prevention system in each specific county context and point out to actions need to prevent such violence.

In October I have submitted to the UN General Assembly the report on Modalities for the establishment of femicides/gender-related killings Watch (A/71/398), while during my recent visit to Argentina I was inform that the Ombusdperson has followed up this initiative and decided to establish a femicide observatory also in line with the popular public movement: “Ni Una Menos”. This call was also followed by the Ombusdperson of Georgia and numerous NGOs are already collecting and analyzing data on femicide.

But let me ask all of you: how many EU Member States have official data on femicide or gender related killing of women?

I hope that next year at this time all EU Member States will have clear data on femicide and will establish femicide watch or observatories for its prevention.