26 | - Número: 009 | 24 de Novembro de 2012

Honour cannot be a justification for violence In some contexts, “honour” is claimed as a justification for violence. Sadly, often we are referring to the most extreme form of violence, homicide. Murders of women, perpetrated by their family, to protect the honour that a woman has supposedly put at stake. This is ridiculous.
In fact, so-called honour does not justify anything. Violence is not acceptable, no matter under which reason or pretext it is inflicted.
The Convention rules out culture, custom, religion, tradition or so-called honour as possible justification for such acts. None of these elements can justify violence.
On the other hand, the Convention is detailed and comprehensive in defining violence. That is part of its added value. Legislators all over Europe can rely on the Convention to make sure that legislation banning violence covers every possible form, even those that were neglected until now:

- Marital rape is a form of violence: it might seem obvious, but some legal systems did not share this orientation. The Convention reaffirms it clearly and requires that it be criminalised.
- Violence is not necessarily physical: it is possible to hurt someone deeply even with words, threats, by coercing one’s liberty. Therefore, psychological violence must also be criminalised.
- The same goes for forced marriages, stalking, female genital mutilations. These realities are so horrible that sometimes we don’t want to think about them. Some people pretend they don’t exist. However, the legislator ignore them: the law has to tackle these crimes.

Parliamentary action to combat violence against women Parliamentarians have a major role to play in combating violence against women; particularly in pushing for the ratification of the Istanbul Convention. Let’s not forget two points:

- the Convention has been signed by a large number of countries and what we mostly need now is that those countries ratify it - Generally speaking, ratification is the Parliaments’ job.

The Parliamentary Assembly is aware of this and therefore it created a particular structure, the Parliamentary Network “Women Free from Violence”. The Network is currently composed of 51 members of the parliamentary delegations from member and observer states to the Parliamentary Assembly. It also includes members of the delegations of our “Partners for Democracy”: Morocco and the Palestinian Legislative Council.
I was appointed General rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on Violence against women and political coordinator of the Network.
As General Rapporteur, it is my duty to intervene in the area of violence against women, contribute to raising awareness on this phenomenon, and promote the Istanbul Convention. I am sparing no effort in carrying out these task, and I must say that I can count on a group of very committed fellow parliamentarians.
In the next few months, four regional seminars will take place in Council of Europe member states. We will spread information, among parliamentarians but also representatives of governments and civil servants, on the contents of the Convention. We will explain what each state needs to do to adapt its legislation to the Convention. It’s worth mentioning that many of the forthcoming activities are possible thanks to voluntary contributions from Council of Europe member states, the most recent from the German foreign office.

Concluding remarks

I will conclude this intervention with just a few more words: