5 | - Número: 015 | 26 de Janeiro de 2013

The Network has also published visibility material of various kinds, such as a newsletter, leaflets and posters. It has a Facebook page, which I warmly invite you to consult and join. We post information about Network activities but also about developments in the area of violence against women, with a special focus on Europe. We want to reach out to experts but also to the general public, to increase public awareness and create general support for the Convention.
In 2012, to mark the International Day for the elimination of violence against women, Network members organised parliamentary seminars on the Istanbul Convention, in Sarajevo, Rome, Brussels and Lisbon. I can tell you, as I promoted one of them, that these seminars were very successful as they made it possible for national parliamentarians to familiarise themselves with the Convention. In the case of Portugal, this was instrumental in achieving the UNANIMOUS ratification of the Convention by parliament, which sent out a very clear political message. The organisation of this cycle of seminars was made possible thanks to a voluntary contribution from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany, which I wholeheartedly thank.

6. New year resolutions Dear Chairperson, Minister, distinguished friends and colleagues, Allow me to leave you some messages. First: don’t pay attention to the voices that claim tired of dead papers, never applied into reality. The old story of “de jure” and “de facto”. That might be true, perhaps, partially true. But the “paper phase” is necessary, useful and not replaceable. We need good laws, good and binding rules, good budgets and that can be monitored on its application.
Second: don’t wait until you have in your country everything online with the Convention, everything settled, to start then the ratification process. That’s not the correct approach. If everybody is doing the same strategy, waiting to find 100% purity and readiness, than in seven or eight years we will still be waiting for the Convention to enter into force.
Third: don’t fall in the tendency to minimize the role of the parliamentarians in this process. They are the real mediators between the people, the citizens, the voters and the decision-making bodies. They are everyday in direct contact with people.
I see by myself, when a parliamentarian goes deep on reality, discovers that women killed had already a long historical background of complains and the risk assessment failed. Or that the cases of women caught by the mafias of the trafficking on human beings, follow the wrong direction on courts and police authorities, presented as illegal migrant cases or organised prostitution by pimps, and not as gender crimes as it should be.
Or even that women see subsidies as victims of domestic violence to be deducted on other social subsidies provided by the State. Parliamentarians have a crucial role to play on this domain.
Look: scores of women are held prisoners in abusive relationships. Some of them suffer in silence. Others are not even listened to.
We should work together, hand in hand - parliamentarians, government representatives, non-governmental organisations and experts – to achieve a tangible result for these women, THIS YEAR.
We should make a common resolution, and should stick to it with the greatest resolve and determination.
This Conference is a great opportunity for us to be better equipped when we go back to our countries. We will have more arguments, solutions and good examples to support our demands.
Together, we can make 2013 the year of non-return, the year zero in a process which will lead to the elimination of violence against women.
Together we can make it happen.

IT DEPENDS ON US WHETHER 2013 WILL BE A HAPPY NEW YEAR.
A DIVISÃO DE REDAÇÃO E APOIO AUDIOVISUAL..