Tomorrow, European parliamentarians are expected to adopt the first in the history of the European Union law aimed at combating violence against women. Today, they examined the content of the directive, which is expected to harmonize legislation and establish more effective protection for women throughout the union, BTA reported.
The new directive will ban forced marriages and female genital mutilation and contain specific rules on cybercrimes such as cyberflashing and cyberstalking. Victims will have improved access to justice and healthcare, including reproductive services, and the legislation will include provisions to prevent rape.
However, MEPs expressed concerns that the directive does not do enough to protect women from rape, pointing to some European leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron, German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to be responsible. , who refused to include in the draft law definitions of giving consent to assist in the prosecution of the crime of rape.
However, Swedish MEP Evin Injdir pointed out that the bill, for the first time in EU history, includes the requirement that member states promote sexual intercourse based on a culture of consent. While this may not seem innovative at first glance, the challenges we faced during the negotiations revealed its truly strong and revolutionary character, Injir said.
Irish MEP Frances Fitzgerald said that passing the bill was not enough. "We need a robust monitoring framework and a real commitment at all levels of government to ensure that this is really implemented," she said, calling on member states' justice ministers, some of whom she said were not fully convinced of the need for the law, to do everything in their power, to learn from their colleagues in Europe, to exchange best practices, to fight for additional budget, to invest resources and to make the successful handling of this crime their own legacy.