11/06/2008 Equality and Non-Discrimination
“Parliamentarians are key players who can bring about changes to national legislation in order to provide better protection for women victims of domestic violence, punish those responsible and offer better prevention arrangements,” Paul Wille (Belgium, ALDE), PACE Vice-President, said yesterday at the closing conference of the Council of Europe campaign to combat violence against women, held over the last two days in Strasbourg.
“By co-ordinating this campaign parliamentary dimension, PACE and national parliaments have demonstrated their ability to promote human rights in national parliaments, deliver concrete results and contribute actively to the implementation of a Council of Europe Campaign,” said José Mendes Bota (Portugal, EPP/CD), rapporteur of the PACE Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men.
Both parliamentarians pointed out that this campaign had generated essential awareness in parliaments, given rise to numerous parliamentary steps to break the silence and led to the networking of national parliaments. They also referred to minimum legislative standards identified by PACE last October to combat violence against women, which had not been achieved in many member states.
Mr Mendes Bota said that the participants at the PACE final conference of the parliamentary dimension of the Campaign in Vienna last April, had called on the Council of Europe to draw up a framework convention to combat violence against women. In the view of the PACE Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, such an international treaty should cover the fight against domestic violence, sexual assault, genital mutilation, forced marriages and so-called “honour” crimes.