27/11/2007 Equality and Non-Discrimination
Strasbourg, 27.11.2007 - At the half-way stage in the "Council of Europe Campaign to combat violence against women, including domestic violence" Darinka Stantcheva (Bulgaria, ALDE), member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), is bringing together parliamentarians and representatives from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and Romania, in the presence of Gülsün Bilgehan (Turkey, SOC), Chair of the PACE Committee on equal opportunities for women and men, to intensify interparliamentary co-operation in this area.
The parliamentarians will attempt to identify legislative deficiencies and their respective parliaments' needs with a view to improving national law on these matters. They will also hold an exchange of views with 's Deputy Minister for Social Affairs, Ivanka Hristova.
José Mendes Bota (, EPP/CD) will present the key measures adopted by the PACE on 5 October as constituting minimum legislative standards for action to combat violence against women. These include criminalisation of domestic violence, guaranteed access to justice, the provision of safe shelters (ideally one per 7,000 inhabitants) and adequate funding for enforcement of the law.
The seminar will be held on Thursday 29 November at the National Assembly of Bulgaria
(1, Alexander I Square, ) from to and will be open to the press.
As a fringe event, the Council of Europe is staging a photographic exhibition "Break the silence on domestic violence", with the backing of the local Council of Europe Information Office. This exhibition will be inaugurated at the Sts. Cyril and Methodius National Library, Sofia, at on 28 November.
PACE Secretariat contact: Guillaume Parent, tel: +33 6 84 45 38 65