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On Tuesday the Council of the European Union, which together with the European Parliament holds legislative power, approved the directive to combat gender violence. It is the first instrument adopted by the Union to equip itself with common standards in combating gender violence, and its formulation required months of negotiations.
The directive requires Member States to criminalize acts such as female genital mutilation, forced marriage and various forms of cyber violence, such as non-consensual sharing of intimate images, online stalking, online harassment and incitement to violence online.
However, the directive lacks a common definition of “rape”, an issue that was much discussed and contested during the negotiations. Some countries, including Italy and Greece, had requested that the directive include it; others, such as France and Germany, had opposed it, arguing that it did not fall within the Union’s competences.
In the end the common definition was not included: for this reason, although the directive was generally welcomed as a step forward on women’s rights within the Union, many doubts were expressed about its completeness. The Spanish Minister for Equality, Ana Redondo, commented on the approval by saying that she would have preferred “more ambitious” rules, but still defined the law as “a good starting point”.
The directive was presented in 2022 and approved by the European Parliament last April: all that was needed for its entry into force was the vote of the Council of the European Union. The directive is a legal act of the Union which, once approved, requires Member States to achieve certain objectives through the promulgation or modification of national laws. Member States now have three years to transpose the newly approved directive.
The directive establishes minimum penalties ranging from one year to five years of imprisonment for the acts whose criminalization it provides for, also indicating a series of aggravating circumstances in cases where the violence involves minors, spouses, partners, ex-spouses or ex-partners, but also public figures, journalists or human rights activists. The directive also provides for it to become easier for those who suffer domestic violence to report and introduces more detailed rules on the assistance and protection that the authorities of the Member States must provide to those who suffer violence.
The directive also requires Member States to adopt measures to prevent secondary victimisation, which occurs when the woman who has suffered violence (a form of violence which could be defined as “primary”) relives traumatic conditions or suffers other violence from subjects who do not they are the authors of primary violence. In this regard, the directive provides that, in criminal proceedings, documents relating to the sexual habits of the person who suffered violence are admitted as evidence only if they are relevant and necessary to the criminal proceedings themselves.
– Read also: Doubts about the European agreement on the law against gender violence