Domestic Violence Against Women and Children in the European Union

Violence against women is a violation of human rights. It is one of the few phenomena which cuts across every imaginable cultural, political, socio-economic, ethnic, religious and educational boundary. However, recognising that gender equity and social development are inseparable, fighting gender-based violence has become a priority for governments and international organisations all over the world even though, for much of history, many forms of violence such as domestic violence --- which this essay focuses on --- were not only ignored but also legally condoned.
The approach has changed and now, 'the human right to a private and family life is of special importance, but cannot be tolerated to condone private conduct within families in which one partner enforces dominance by violence over the other. The key human rights principle is that violence deliberately directed against any other person is never a purely private matter'. 1

1 The Legal Regime

1.1 The basis of domestic violence legislation

Violence against women is inextricably linked to issues of gender equality and gender mainstreaming. The preamble to the 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women clearly locates the roots of gender-based violence in 'historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women, recognising that violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men'.
In the European Union, the Commission first started work on gender mainstreaming in the early 1990s by developing a more consistent approach following the 1995 Beijing UN Women's Conference2 which recognised 'violence against women' as a critical area of concern, acknowledged that violence against girls 'begins at the earliest stages of life and continues unabated throughout their lives', and reaffirmed commitments to the equal rights and inherent human dignity of women and men enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and other international human rights instruments such as the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Further, Article 2 of the EC Treaty states that the Community shall have as its task equality between men and women and Article 13 states that without prejudice to the other provisions of the (same) Treaty and within the limits of the powers conferred by it upon the Community, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament, may take appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.

1.2 The definition of domestic violence

Domestic violence may be perpetrated by spouses, lineal ascendants and descendants and the lateral branch of the family up to the IV degree whether they are related by blood, marriage, fosterage or adoption, or by intimate partners or legal guardians.
Within the European Union, violence within families, right from the denigration of honour, is considered to be domestic violence and is covered under the general provisions of penal codes even if it not explicitly mentioned therein. Moreover, the laws themselves have been amended and harmonised so as to remove obstacles in tackling the issue.
For example, earlier definitions of rape exclusively spoke of extra-marital rape, and marital rape did not expressly constitute an offence (although it was possible to initiate action against it under assault laws). However, the term 'extra-marital' has now simply been deleted from the definition so as to include marital rape in the definition of rape and make it an offence in itself.
The spectrum of domestic violence (which, incidentally, has a high level of recidivism) may include psychological, physical, sexual, financial and emotional abuse which may manifest itself as physical injury, the deprivation of food, money or other resources, intimidation, humiliation and degradation, and may result in anhedonia, pain, exhaustion, isolation, alienation, depression, fear, and decreased levels of self-esteem, productivity and attentiveness. The law forbids any kind of violence (including seemingly innocuous forms of abuse such as nagging which is, just like any other form of abuse, one of the grounds of divorce in the case of violence which occurs within a marriage).

1.3 The procedure to deal with domestic violence

Domestic violence proceedings can be made speedy, and various injunctions which (depending on the country) may include Non-Molestation Orders and Occupation Orders can be obtained by victims. The Power of Arrest may be attached to an injunction if it is shown that the perpetrator has used violence or has threatened to do so and may do so again.
The legal nature of a Complaint may make those who are aware of an offence liable to be sanctioned if they do not report it to the authorities. Due to this, in practice, doctors who provide medical assistance to victims of domestic violence have a legal obligation to notify not the police but the public prosecutor's office directly (except in the UK where the police undertakes the investigation). The public prosecutor then conducts a suo moto investigation into the incident(s). The British Government, for example, explicitly says, "The NHS has a particular contribution to make in domestic violence, not only because of the impact on victims' health, but also because the NHS may be the first contact point with professionals who can recognise and intervene in the situation." Domestic violence may be concealed by victims but not by the authorities. The consent of victims is no longer essential to initiate action against perpetrators, and various advertising campaigns have been conducted to make people aware that 'the police will seek out men who abuse their partners and arrest them, even if the victim refuses to make a statement or give evidence'.3 The penalties are higher if the victim has special needs such as those of being pregnant, handicapped or disabled.

1.4 Judicial reconciliation

Taking into consideration high stress-levels, judicial reconciliation has been made available to deal with domestic violence: the perpetrator receives psychological therapy at a public hospital (for as long as councillors think is necessary) and promises not to repeat his behaviour. Penal sanctions are suspended for a period that may vary between three and four years (depending on the country). The councillors report the perpetrator's progress to the judge and if it is unsatisfactory, the judicial reconciliation will end and penal sanctions will resume as they have a retrospective effect. These provisions, however, do not apply to guardians, foster parents, and minders.

2 Measures in Support of Victims

2.1 Shelters for victims

Shelters, which provide a witness status to their guests, are set up by the State as well as other NGOs such as the Church and women's rights NGOs to protect of victims of domestic violence. There is also an option to provide them with immediate interim shelter (for 48 hours) even before a medical examination by the coroner.
The first modern women's shelter (which was established in Chiswick, England in 1971 by Erin Pizzey) developed out of an 'advice centre' for women and their children. Since then, the movement for shelters has grown and in 1986, the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities recommended that one shelter should be available for every 10000 people.

2.2 Domestic violence campaigns

The Commission has been conducting programmes and funding projects to raise awareness about violence and trafficking, to prevent them and to support victims. These include Daphne (2000-2003) and Daphne II (2004-08). The financial framework for the Daphne Programme was €20 million for the first phase and €50 million for the second phase. The programmes have tried to contribute towards ensuring a high level of physical and mental protection for children, young persons and women against violence (including sexual exploitation) by preventing violence and by providing support to victims especially in order to prevent their re-exposure to violence. They have also tried to promote closer co-operation between Member States and harmonise responses to these crimes although the principle of subsidiarity requires Member States to take measures to fight violence individually.4,5

References:
1. Reproductive health and human rights: integrating medicine, ethics and law(Cook, Dickens, Fathalla, Oxford, 2003, p 390)
2. Gender mainstreaming into practice
3. Metropolitan Police Service - Domestic Violence advertising campaign
4. Gender Mainstreaming and Gender based violence and trafficking in women
5. The Daphne Programme and The Daphne Programme

This post is an extract from an essay was written for the POROS Project.

Children and Domestic Violence

1 Children who witness domestic violence
The effects of domestic violence are not confined to its victims. Apart from the fact that children may try to intervene to protect adult victims (thus putting themselves in danger), children who witness domestic violence are more likely than others to develop psychological and social problems including stress-related disorders such as PTSD. They may be fearful and angry, and exhibit (both as children and as adults) internalized and externalized behavioral problems including withdrawal, hostility and substance dependency. Their relationships may also reflect violence learned or seen at home.
2 Violence against children
The reported instances of violence against children in the form of acts and omissions which endanger their physical or emotional health, well-being and development have increased over the last few decades. The primary forms of violence and abuse against children are neglect, exploitation and physical, sexual or emotional abuse, and they can have devastating consequences for victims both immediately and in the long-term.
Violence against children is completely illegal and schools, doctors and social workers have a duty to report suspicions of child abuse to the relevant legal authorities.
There appears to be no single, definitive cause of abusive behaviour against children. At one end of the scale, the number of officially recorded child murders has steadily risen over the years and 60% of those charged with these murders are the parents of the murdered children. According to John Keane, in many of these cases, it is clear that both the victims and the perpetrators are trapped in high tension zones 'where the conflict-ridden logics of the household (intimacy, sexual desire, identity formation, personal habits, marriage, money, housework and childcare) interact with, reinforce and often contradict virtually the same list of conflict-ridden logics of the labour market (with its additional special stresses and strains of employment, unemployment and underemployment) and its neighbouring criss-crossing social relations with the wider civil society'.
3 What Europeans think of domestic violence
The Teen Abuse Survey of Great Britain 2005 conducted by the NSPCC revealed that a third of teenage girls experienced or witnessed domestic violence at home but more than half of them did not consider this --- hitting, screaming and shouting --- to be domestic violence. 43% of teenagers thought that it was acceptable for a boyfriend to become aggressive and over 40% of all girls said that they would consider giving a boy a second chance if he hit them.
The general awareness about domestic violence in Europe appears to be high though; only 4% of Europeans said that they had never heard of domestic violence against women in the 1999 Eurobarometer Survey conducted by the Commission. The survey also divulged that 62% of Europeans considered domestic violence against women to be 'unacceptable in all circumstances and always punishable by law', 32% considered it 'unacceptable in all circumstances but not always punishable by law', 2% said that it was 'acceptable in certain circumstances' and, thankfully, only 0.7% believed that it was 'acceptable in all circumstances'.
This post is an extract from an essay was written for the POROS Project.

Trafficking and Prostitution

This post focusses on the EU.

1 Direct trafficking

The expansion of the European Union and the opportunity to make money due to an ostensibly insatiable demand are factors which have contributed to up to 120000 women and children being annually trafficked into Western European countries from Central and Eastern European countries.
Most women victims are aged between 18 and 25, and have been abducted or deceived (by being promised ‘normal’ jobs) in Western Europe. They are usually sexually exploited and suffer from severe physical and psychological trauma which may continue long after the exploitation itself has ended. The European Union has been more active in developing penal legislation, law enforcement and judicial co-operation than in the preventing trafficking and protecting victims although it has supported NGOs and health and social services to assist victims to recover and resume a normal life. [1]

2 Indirect trafficking

In 2003, immigration contributed to more than 80% of the total population growth in the EU-15. The effective integration of immigrants, many of whom are financially dependant and therefore particularly vulnerable to abuse, in both the labour market and society has become a channel to reach the Lisbon targets. However, ‘the gender perspective is to a large extent lacking in integration policies, which hampers the possibilities to fully utilise the potential of immigrant women in the labour market’.[2]

3 The links between trafficking and domestic violence

Women who have entered a society alien to them are especially vulnerable to being subjected to exploitation and violence since they often do not know their rights and even if they do, they may not know how to protect themselves.
Mass migrations due to poverty, pauperisation and prejudice ensure that rootlessness, ethnic tensions and violent lawlessness are a feature of nearly every city of the developed democratic world, [3] and one of the manifestations of this phenomenon is that those who are violent at home now have access to a market of both women who are illegally trafficked and women who migrate to Western European countries in search of a husband.
Moreover, women who migrate to marry ‘threaten’ the local women, particularly those who are already married, because their husbands may divorce them in favour of (younger) migrants thus depriving them of their pensions and leaving them in poverty after decades of marriage.
Recommendations have been made to protect local women in such situations by increasing stamp duty to make divorce proceedings prohibitively expensive, ensuring that matrimonial property is divided equally between the husband and his first wife, considering housework as labour in the case of housewives and making provisions to entitle housewives to a salary and pension from the state for their work in the home.

4 Efforts to beat trafficking

In line with the principle of subsidiarity and as signatories of the Beijing Platform for Action, it is Member States’ responsibility to take measures to fight trafficking although the European Commission has undertaken initiatives to help them fulfil their obligations. The Commission was, for example, responsible for implementing STOP (1996-2000) and STOP II (2001-2002) which were conducted to exchange information, and to reinforce networks and practical co-operation between Member States in order to encourage and facilitate action to prevent and combat trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children (including child pornography). STOP had a budget of €6.5 million and co-financed 85 projects in its five-year implementation period and STOP II, which was initiated to ensure continued support to the programme, had funds €4 million at its disposal for its two-year implementation period.[4]
Furthermore, both human rights law and (the the majority position in) refugee law now acknowledge state responsibility for human rights violations such as family violence which has become one of the most visible (and prolific) emerging bodies of refugee case law.[5]

References:
[1] Trafficking in Women; The misery behind the fantasy: from poverty to sex slavery
[2] Framework Strategy on Gender Equality 2001-2005
(The European Commission)
[3] Reflections on Violence
(John Keane, Oxford, 1996)
[4] STOP
[5] Refugee Law, Gender, and the Human Rights Paradigm
(Deborah E. Anker, Harvard Human Rights Journal, Volume 15 Spring 2002)

This post is an extract from an essay was written for the POROS Project.