Today, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the opening for signature of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention), the Council of Europe launched a special documentary illustrating the impact of the Convention on the ground in four countries: Albania, France, Italy and Sweden. The documentary encompasses testimonies of relevant state or civil society actors presenting concrete examples of measures taken in these countries, in four areas, better known as the “4Ps” of the Istanbul Convention: 1) Prevention of violence against women, 2) Protection of victims, 3) Prosecution of perpetrators and 4) Integrated Policies on violence against women which are comprehensive and coordinated among all relevant stakeholders.
In the field of prevention, it portrays the interdisciplinary works of professionals from the Center for Abusive Men in Florence, which is part of Relive, the main Italian network of perpetrator programmes that developed consolidated guidelines aiming to improve the safety of women and children victims. In the area of protection, it presents “La Maison des Femmes”(the Women’s Home) as a specialised support service located in Saint Denis hospital in France providing psycho-medical support to women victims of domestic violence, sexual violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. Regarding prosecution, it depicts the effects of the 2018 change in the definition of sexual violence in Sweden, which now ensures that “all non-consensual sexual acts are criminalised”. Finally, in the field of integrated policies, the Referral Mechanism against Domestic Violence in Albania is presented as a local co-operation mechanism set up among professionals from the different sectors which provides a standard procedure to protect and support victims of domestic violence.
All in all, the documentary demonstrates the practical relevance of the Istanbul Convention in providing concrete responses to the needs of women victims of the different forms of violence covered by the Convention. Some extracts were initially launched at high-level conference “Gender equality and the Istanbul Convention: a decade of action” organised by the Council of Europe, in partnership with the German Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
