Combating violence against women and domestic violence - 12.1.
On Thursday, 12 January 2023, the FEMM Committee jointly with the LIBE committee debated a draft report on the directive on “Combating violence against women and domestic violence”.
This proposal is a historical step forward to finally address violence against women and domestic violence in a comprehensive way at a common European level, with a binding instrument.
The co-rapporteurs from the FEMM and LIBE Committees highlight that gender-based violence breaches human rights and is an extreme form of gender-based structural discrimination. It can take many forms, including psychological, physical, sexual, economic, digital violence, harassment and more. Recent years have seen the emergence of gender-based cyber violence, which potentially has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic as even more of people's social lives have shifted online. However, all kinds of gender-based violence have exacerbated due to women and girls being forced to stay home with the perpetrators during the Covid-19 lockdown.