ELEFTHEROTYPIA, No tolerance for violence against women
| No tolerance for violence against women |  |
| By ANNA KARAMANOU* | 31. 8. 2003 |
The case of Marie Trintignant, who was beaten to death by her partner, the French musician Bertrand Cantat, would not have occupied international media if she had not been the daughter of the famous actor Jean-Louis Trintignant and if her husband had not practiced the noble profession of a musician. The tragic news in the height of summer forced the media to bring to the forefront the most silenced crime in the world – domestic violence.
The issue concerns millions of women and children worldwide who suffer daily degrading treatment or even fatal violence from men like Cantat. The UN states that domestic violence causes more deaths of women than cancer. In the European Union, at least one in five women has experienced violent behavior from their partner, while 95% of all cases of violence occur within the home.
Violence against women and children is, unfortunately, a widespread phenomenon in all societies and is independent of environment, age, or social status. Many underestimate it or consider it a personal problem that cannot fall under the jurisdiction of the legal system, despite the shocking statistical data.
Furthermore, in recent years, with the strengthening of migration flows, at least 500,000 women and children in Europe are victims of a new form of slavery and violence, trafficking for economic and sexual exploitation, internationally known as trafficking. This represents a complete denial of fundamental human rights and freedoms, everything that makes human life dignified.
Violence against women is the result of the historically unequal distribution of power between the sexes, the long-standing devaluation and exclusion of the female gender – until almost the early twentieth century – from education, the sciences, the arts, as well as from economic and political life. It is also the result of the association of masculinity with power, dominance, cruelty, the denial of emotions, and the sanctification of the use of violence (“the rod came from heaven”).
Modern psychological research on the relationship between violent behavior and gender struggles to provide answers to the following paradox: while women have always been the ones to suffer discrimination and continue to be in a disadvantaged position, they are not the ones who, driven by a sense of injustice, develop violent behavior.
To understand this paradox, it is necessary to take into account how asymmetric the roles are and how different the social expectations for boys and girls are, from the moment of their birth. Even the etymology of the relevant words connects the male gender with violence.
In both ancient and modern Greek, the word “andreia” (manliness) also carries the meaning of courage. The same is true in Latin with “vir,” from which words in many languages are derived that are related to manliness, virtue, and courage. In the context of patriarchal culture, a man’s honor is intertwined with his ability to use violence as a means of resolving conflicts – whether national, social, familial, or personal. It is well known that so-called “honor crimes” are still on the agenda in many countries.
It is these reasons that have led many governments to promote prevention, treatment, and behavior change programs. In Austria, for example, in the case of a violent incident within the family, it is – by law – the violent man who is required to leave the house, not the woman-victim. In other words, the focus is not only on supporting the victims of violence.
The fight against violence against women and children is a top priority for the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights, which is striving to place it at the top of the European Union’s priorities as well. Special emphasis is placed on raising public awareness and zero tolerance for all forms of violent behavior. The most recent milestone in this long-term effort is the European DAPHNE programme, which funds non-governmental organizations, public bodies, and institutions, and has received widespread acceptance and support. In the European Parliament, we supported the continuation of the programme until 2008, an increase in its budget, and furthermore, we asked the members of the Constitutional Assembly for the Future of Europe to include a strong legal basis for combating violence in the European Constitution.
Greece, of course, is not lacking in domestic violence and the activities of internationally organized trafficking networks. Therefore, beyond the commendable initiatives of the General Secretariat for Gender Equality, the Church, and women’s organizations, it is necessary for the presidential decrees for the implementation of the existing legislation to be published immediately and for specific measures to be promoted.
Such an effective measure could be the establishment and operation, under the responsibility of the state, of the European Observatory-Center for the Prevention, Combating of Violence, and Support for Victims, as detailed in my proposal to the relevant ministers, which has, in principle, been accepted.
* ANNA KARAMANOU is the chair of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality of the European Parliament and a Member of the European Parliament for PASOK.