Current situation
Violence against women (gender violence) is a problem that affects all EU Member States, as the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) of the EU showed in its survey in 2014. This survey showed, for instance, that one in three women (33% of women in the EU) had experienced physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15. When these figures were given by country, the survey showed that there was not a single Member State where violence against women affected less than 10% of the female population. In other words, this problem affects the whole EU, and thus an EU approach is necessary. This need to deal with this issue at EU level has been reiterated by the European Parliament, which in February 2016 reminded the European Commission of their call for an EU directive on combating violence against women, as requested by the Parliament already in 2014. The Parliament also called for zero tolerance towards this type of violence.
Needs that the project aims to address
Fighting gender violence requires the full commitment of different professionals. Among those professionals are lawyers. This is because violence will nearly always involve a criminal or civil claim, and a lawyer is an essential tool to achieve a successful result with that. Therefore, this project aims to have better trained lawyers at national level but also in relation to the relevant EU legislation (eg: Regulation (EU) 606/2013 on mutual recognition of protection measures in civil matters, Directive 2011/99/EU on the European Protection Order and Directive 2012/29/EU establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime) – while at the same time giving the participating lawyers the benefit of the experience of other Member States.
Objectives
The main project objective is to train 210 lawyers from 7 different jurisdictions (Spain, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Poland, Northern Ireland and England & Wales) on national law and EU legislation related to violence against women, while enriching them with the experience from other Member States through the participation of international speakers in the seminars to be held at national level. There will be 7 national seminars where international speakers will participate and explain how this topic is addressed in their Member State, with the aim of passing on good practices.
Another project objective is to promote networking between lawyers participating in the national seminars and speakers. This networking will give the project a dimension which is both national (between the national participants in the seminars) and cross-border (between participants and speakers).
Finally, this project will also contribute towards the EU’s proposed objective of enabling half of the legal practitioners in the European Union to participate in European judicial training activities by 2020.
Target group
The project targets directly those lawyers who will participate in the 7 seminars and those who will access the seminar material that will be available online (on the European Lawyers Foundation website). Indirectly, the project will target and benefit those women who are suffering (or may suffer) violence as women and who require the help of a lawyer. Lawyers are very often the first point of contact for women who suffer gender violence. Furthermore, lawyers are in a perfect position to identify possible future cases of gender violence which can arise through family disputes.
This project is financed with the support of the Justice Programme of the European Union
Manual on the law relating to violence against women (England, Greece, Ireland, Italy, N. Ireland, Poland, Spain)
This Manual is one of the main outcomes of the TRAVAW project (Training of lawyers on the law relating to violence against women), led by the European Lawyers Foundation with the aim of joining the fight against violence against women, through training lawyers from various Member States’ jurisdictions (Spain, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Poland, Northern Ireland and England and Wales) on the various legal topics involved in domestic and other types of violence against women.
Domestic violence and abuse: the UK perspective - Neelam Sarkaria
European legal framework applicable to cases of VAW - Efstathios Poularakis
Domestic, sexual and gender-based violence in Ireland” – Joan O’Mahony
Spanish law for protecting women who have suffered violence - Teresa Peramato
Case-law on violence against women in Spain - Presentation by Ángeles Carmona
EU legal framework on violence against women - Cristina Rodríguez Toja
Legal framework and case-law on VAW in Italy - Cinzia Calabrese
Case-law on VAW at the European Court of Human Rights - Athanasios Karouzakis
Case-law on domestic violence in Greece” - Palaiologos Panagopoulos
Legal framework on violence against women in Greece - Cleo Papapantoleon
Police and judicial authority practices in Greece” - Angeliki Serafeim
Recent modifications in the Spanish legislation on VAW – Filomena Peláez
Greek Legal Framework and case-law on forced marriage, honour-based abuse and FMG - Panos Alexandris
Domestic violence in Poland - Sylwia Spurek
Preventing domestic violence in Poland
Criminal aspects of domestic violence in Poland - Magdalena-Dziewanowska
Violence against women in Poland: European standards, Polish law and Polish courts - Marcin Gorski
Penal actions for protection of women in domestic violence cases in Italy
One ordinary case of everyday violence
Greek legal framework on violence against women
Impact of gender violence on women Civil provisions-IT-min
Rights of victims of gender-based violence in European Order
A judicial perspective N. Ireland - Judge McElholm
Case-law from the ECHR -Tara Maguire
Developments in national law N. Ireland - Judith Gillespie
European legal framework on violence against women - Kelly Doherty
National case-law in N. Ireland: a prosecutor’s perspective - Marianne O'Kane
National legal framework N. Ireland - Jan Melia
Identifying domestic violence in clients - Ruth O’Dea
Legal framework and case-law on violence against women in Poland - Agata Bzdyn
The Irish legal framework for women who have suffered gender violence - Joan O'Mahony
The voice of the client -Noeline Blackwell
FGM in Northern Ireland - Melanie Rice
FGM forced marriage and honour-based abuse - Neelam Sarkaria