Being a woman means not just having to
deal with gender-based discrimination or gender pay gaps daily
but also living dangerously. Ahead of International Women's Day
on March 8 here's how EU member states attempt to combat
gender-based violence as it varies, as do perceptions.
Carlien Scheele, the director of the European Institute for
Gender Equality (EIGE), spoke when presenting the organisation's
latest report in February.
The EU has made combating gender-based and domestic violence
part of its policies. The Commission, under the EU Gender
Equality Strategy 2020-2025 committed itself to help prevent and
combat violence, as well as supporting those affected and
holding perpetrators accountable. It committed itself to make
"significant progress" towards a gender-equal Europe.
On Friday, Commissioner for Equality Hadja Lahbib presented the
Commission's new Roadmap to strengthen women's rights, with
freedom from gender-based violence as the first step on this
path.
In recent years the EU has taken several steps to achieve these
goals, among them concluding the accession process to the
Istanbul Convention - to which the Commission became party in
October 2023. The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and
combating violence against women, as it is properly known, is
the first legally binding international instrument on this
topic. It defines violence against women as falling under four
key forms: physical, sexual, psychological and economic.
In May 2024, the Council adopted the EU Directive on combating
violence against women and domestic violence. It criminalises at
EU level certain forms of violence against women such as female
genital mutilation and forced marriage, and also online violence
- for example non-consensual sharing of intimate images, cyber
stalking, cyber harassment and incitement to hatred and violence
on the ground of gender. The Directive was hailed as a big step
in the right direction, but also came under fire as member
states failed to agree on the criminalisation of rape. There was
no consensus on a consent-based definition of rape.
Widespread violence
Member states have until June 2027 to implement the directive in
their national laws and policies. However, progress is uneven
and the scale vast. The statistics, which are rolled out as
every year around International Women's Day on March 8, make for
harsh reading.
The EIGE Gender Equality Index 2024 presented recent policy and
legal developments on violence against women in the EU and
Member States. It stated that violence against women was
"widespread and underreported".
In its composite index of violence across 12 member states, the
score was 31.9 points with Greece (24.6 points) and Finland
(41.7 points) at the ends of the spectrum. 1 indicates a
situation where there is no violence and 100 that violence
against women is widespread and severe.
According to the statistics and EU wide survey data used for the
index, 31 percent of women over 15 in the EU have experienced
physical and/or sexual violence and 57 percent of the victims
have suffered health consequences.
In a recent German survey 92 percent of women between 18 and 35
said they have experienced harassment or assault.
What is femicide?
According to EIGE, counting femicides - the murder of a woman or
girl because of her gender - across the bloc is difficult due to
differing definitions. Not all member states have specific laws
concerning femicide, though countries such as Malta, Cyprus or
Croatia have dedicated femicide laws in their criminal codes.
But women across Europe are still being murdered, as these
examples show:
In France, the interior ministry said 96 women were victims of
"conjugal femicide" in 2023.
In Spain, 48 women were murdered due to "gender violence" in a
relationship or family situation in 2024. In the same year, 9
minors were killed in crimes perpetrated by their fathers or
their mother's spouse. There were also at least six femicides
committed by someone who was not a current or former partner. It
was the lowest number of murders due to gender violence recorded
since 2003. Since that year, 1,293 women have been murdered in
Spain by their partners or ex-partners.
In 2024, in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), 12 women were killed in
femicide cases, yet there is no unified register of domestic
violence, making it difficult to track the scale of the problem
and for institutions to respond effectively.
Italy reported over 90 femicides in 2024. At least 48 of the
victims were killed by their partner or ex-partner, according to
the country's interior ministry. About one in five victims were
over 70.
In Germany, there is a femicide reported almost every day. In
2023, some 938 girls and women were victims of attempted or
completed femicides. 360 of these women died. "Almost every day
there is a femicide. Every day around 400 women are victims of
violence in their relationships," said Minister for Women's
Affairs Lisa Paus in November , when presenting the first
situation report titled "Gender-specific offences against
women".
Protecting victims
Across Europe, countries are at different stages in their legal
systems in how to combat gender-based violence.
In Spain, where the government has long made fighting
gender-based violence a priority, parliament is debating the
renewal of a State Pact against Gender-Based Violence with about
460 measures aimed at protecting victims.
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