Back PACE Committee on Equality and Non-discrimination Meeting of the Parliamentary Network “Women Free from Violence”

Strasbourg , 

Check against delivery

Dear Parliamentarians,

Your Network is indispensable to keeping violence against women and domestic violence high on the political agenda of the Council of Europe.

The entry into force of the Convention on 1 August, only three years after it was opened for signature in Istanbul, would not have been possible without your relentless efforts to promote signatures and ratifications by the member States.

14 States have now ratified the Convention, and your work is continuing to show results. I have just had confirmation that Monaco will be the 15th State to ratify next week, and I know that a good number of States are working hard on preparing their ratifications.

I was very pleased to see that so many of you accepted the invitation to attend the Conference “Safe from fear, safe from violence”, which the Council of Europe organised in Rome on 19 September together with the Italian Chamber of Deputies and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to celebrate the entry into force of the Istanbul Convention. I should particularly like to thank Mr Mendes Bota for having moderated the session on the Istanbul Convention: the “gold standard” in fighting violence against women, and President Brasseur for her opening address.

More than 200 parliamentarians and government representatives from Europe and our Southern Neighbourhood paid tribute to the important role of the Istanbul Convention in filling a gap in the protection of women from gender-based violence in Europe and beyond. 

Two important messages emerged from the Conference. First, that we need to help our member States to implement the provisions of the Convention. Second, that we need a high quality monitoring mechanism, which includes parliamentarians.

Many of our member States have ratified the Convention after a long and comprehensive process of aligning their legislation and policies with the requirements of the Convention. Others are at the beginning of this process and their ratification demonstrates a clear political will to fulfil the requirements of the Convention. The Council of Europe will continue to offer support to this process.  

Work is now underway to ensure the swift setting-up of the monitoring mechanism, which consists of two pillars: the GREVIO, an independent expert body, and the Committee of the Parties, a political body composed of official representatives of the States Parties to the Convention.

The 14 contracting parties are currently discussing the election procedure for the members of GREVIO. The aim is that the Committee of Ministers adopts this procedure before the end of the year.

The nomination and election of GREVIO members at the first meeting of the Committee of the Parties will take place in spring 2015, and GREVIO will meet for the first time as soon as possible after this.

It is crucial that GREVIO includes highly qualified and committed experts.
I would like to appeal to all who have a role to play in the establishment of this expert body that they do their utmost to ensure a transparent procedure, which is open to competition in order to allow highly qualified individuals with a variety of backgrounds and expertise to be nominated.

The Convention foresees a strong role not only for the Parliamentary Assembly, but also for national parliaments. GREVIO’s reports will be submitted to national parliaments and I invite all of you to make full use of this built-in parliamentary scrutiny.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The topic of your hearing today is sexual violence against women in armed conflicts.

The Council of Europe was represented at the recent “Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict” in London, and I cannot but emphasize again the main points of this Summit:

Rape and sexual violence are not an inevitable consequence of war, or a lesser crime.

The shame of such crimes must be firmly placed on those who commit them, not on their victims.

Still, accesses to justice and redress for victims of crimes of sexual violence in conflicts remain matters of great concern.

Article 2 of the Istanbul Convention explicitly states that it applies in times of peace and in situations of armed conflict.  

The Istanbul Convention requires a number of support services and measures to ensure the safety and physical security of victims of all forms of violence against women covered by the Convention. These legal obligations do not cease during situations of armed conflict. 

On the contrary, because of the widespread use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, it is a major cause pushing women to flee conflict zones.

The Istanbul Convention acknowledges this and requires governments to offer gender-sensitive reception procedures for refugees, in particular women who escaped sexual violence and a gender-sensitive interpretation of the existing refugee grounds and to recognise that gender-based violence may constitute persecution within the meaning of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees.

The Council of Europe also has other standards and initiatives addressing the issue of sexual violence against women in conflict.

First, I would like to mention the Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation (2002)5 on the protection of women against violence. In the conclusions of the Fourth Round of monitoring of this Recommendation, from March this year, only 19 of our 47 member States reported having a national policy specifically addressing violence against women in conflict and post-conflict situations.

Second, Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation (2010) 10 on the role of women and men in conflict prevention and resolution and in peace building requests our member States to put in place measures to ensure the protection of and respect for human rights of women before, during and after conflict.

I look forward to the exchanges during this hearing, which I am confident will bring inspiration and motivation for our ultimate goal – the protection of women from violence!

Thank you for your attention.