Combatting violence against women

Key points

The EESC:

• applauds the regulatory innovation of a Directive on combating violence against women from an intersectional perspective. Such a Directive is much sought-after by society;

• believes that the policies that aim to counter them must not be neutral but must be drawn up based on a clear and unequivocal gender perspective, presented in such a way as to make it easier to understand their importance and effectiveness;

• considers that the Directive must cover all forms of violence against women, including amongst others: institutional violence, sexual and reproductive exploitation, harassment at work, gender-based violence occurring in the family, chemical submission, street harassment, gender and/or sex-based sexual harassment and forced sterilisation of women with disabilities;

• underlines that violence against women should be included in the list of EU crimes in Article 83(1) of the TFEU;

• is of the view that specific measures should be included within the framework of social dialogue and collective negotiation to ensure that victims of violence against women can retain their jobs and to ensure the integration of unemployed victims into the labour market;

• stresses that special attention should also be given to women with disabilities, women and girls from ethnic and/or cultural minorities – such as the Roma –, and to migrant women, especially if their administrative situation is irregular, and to refugee women and girls fleeing war;

• calls on the European Commission to include healthcare services, including sexual and reproductive health services, in the list of essential support services for victims and to press for all EU Member States to urgently remove any barriers that make it difficult to access emergency contraception and induced abortion services following a rape.