II SÉRIE-D — NÚMERO 20

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years to file a complaint. By doing this, she certainly saved her life. And, to quote his own words, she saved

also the life of the perpetrator, who decided to face the problem and undertook voluntary rehabilitation.

Trust in the judicial system

For victims to report what is happening to them, we must ensure that they can trust the authorities, in

particular the judicial system. We must ensure that they will not be subjected to secondary victimisation, to

public humiliation, to lengthy judicial proceedings, to injustice.

I was astonished when, during a hearing on the ‘mediatisation of rape’ organised by the Network last year, a

social worker said: “if someone I know well such a friend or a relative was raped, I would advise her not to

report it to the police because what happens next is a continuation of suffering and humiliation”.

I was shocked as a legislator but sympathetic as a human being. It takes an awful lot of courage and

resilience to face criminal proceedings of this kind, in which all too often the role of victims and perpetrators are

reversed and women have to prove that they did not provoke violence, that they physically opposed it, that they

did not give consent. No wonder the number of cases that fall out of the system is so high.

Knowledge

The FRA study also highlights lack of knowledge:

19 percent of women in the EU are not aware of any organisation or victim support services,

41 percent of women are not aware of specific laws or political initiatives to protect women,

and only 50 percent of women have seen or heard of campaigns on violence against women.

Communicating

These are very clear signals that, if we want the Istanbul Convention to have an impact, we must put more

emphasis in communicating, raising-awareness, campaigning, informing.

The Council of Europe should continue to be present in all the major international fora on violence against

women. I consider our regular presence at the Commission on the Status of Women in New York as a key tool

to influence policy-makers and international organisations and establish contacts with civil society and grass

root organisations.

I also greatly support the work of the Council of Europe on the image of women in the media. I believe that

the media is a fundamental ally to raise awareness, promote gender equality in all aspects of society and

empower women to claim their right to live free from violence.

Ambassadors of equality and women’s rights

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was well aware of the crucial responsibility of

parliamentarians to raise awareness when, in 2006, it set up the Network of national parliamentarians

committed to combating domestic violence.

In the following two years, its members organised more than two hundred initiatives in national parliaments,

in the context of the Council of Europe Campaign ‘Stop Domestic Violence.’

In the years that followed the Campaign, the Assembly realized that it was necessary to continue this work

while adapting to new developments:

– the name of the Network was changed to ‘Parliamentary Network Women Free from Violence’;

– its membership was extended so as to cover not only parliamentarians from Council of Europe member

and observer States but also from ‘Partners for democracy’ such as the Parliament of Morocco and the

Palestinian National Council.

The Network activities nowadays are very diversified. I would just mention a few: