GREVIO publishes its first baseline report on Belgium
Τhe Council of Europe Expert Group on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO) published its first baseline evaluation report on Belgium.
The report contains a comprehensive analysis of the implementation of the provisions of the Istanbul Convention. It welcomes the long-standing commitment of the Belgian authorities to combat violence against women and highlights progress made by uniting the regional, community and federal authorities around national action plans and by extending the scope of policies to include all forms of violence against women beyond intimate partner violence.
Nevertheless, GREVIO notes that gender-based violence against women is relatively invisible within Belgian policies. Gender neutrality in the titles of laws, circulars or action plans is perpetuated or even made worse by a tendency to put women and men on an equal, symmetrical footing among the victims and perpetrators of the types of violence covered by the convention. Whilst commending the work of the national co-ordinating mechanism, the report underlines further the need to establish a central and transversal space for co-ordination and dialogue that is sustainable and common to all stakeholders, including civil society organisations, as well as to improve co-ordination at all levels of government.
GREVIO report on Belgium: violence against women should be more visible in national anti-violence policies
Strasbourg, 21.09.2020 – In its first report published today on implementation by Belgium of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (known as the “Istanbul Convention”), the Group of Experts (GREVIO) highlights how gender-based violence against women is relatively invisible within Belgian policies. Gender neutrality in the titles of laws, circulars or action plans is perpetuated or even made worse by a tendency to put women and men on an equal, symmetrical footing among the victims and perpetrators of the types of violence covered by the convention. Gender-neutral policies carry the risk that interventions by professionals may not be gender-sensitive, which can lead to gaps in protection and support for women and contribute to them suffering secondary victimisation. In addition, policies to combat violence against women have been slow to mainstream the issue of multiple discrimination and to address the full range of groups affected by violence, even though measures exist to help specific target groups such as people with disabilities.
National public authorities at both federal and federated entity level have for several decades regularly affirmed their commitment to securing equality between women and men and to ensuring women’s safety by combating violence against the physical, sexual and psychological integrity of individuals. Since the adoption of the first national action plan in 2001, significant progress has been made by uniting the regional, Community and federal authorities around such a plan in 2006 and by extending the scope of the plan beyond intimate partner violence in 2008 to include other forms of violence committed against girls and women such as sexual violence, forced marriages, so-called honour crimes and female sexual mutilation.
In order to ensure the comprehensive and co-ordinated nature of the policies, several co-ordination mechanisms have been put in place by at both federal and regional level. GREVIO notes that the choice to separate administrative (within the Interdepartmental Co-ordination Group), political (through an inter-ministerial steering committee) and civil society (within a group of experts) co-ordination leads to fragmentation in this area and is detrimental to consistency in terms of policies and approaches with disparities between the French-speaking and Flemish governments. The report therefore underlines the need to establish a central and transversal space for co-ordination and dialogue that is sustainable and common to all stakeholders, as well as to improve co-ordination at all levels of government. With regard to the national co-ordinating body (the Institute for Equality between Women and Men, IEFH), there is a need to increase the authority and resources which the IEFH requires to carry out its tasks and support a transversal approach at all levels of government, while at the same time providing effective monitoring and evaluation of policies through an independent multidisciplinary body. Despite the progress observed in the collection of administrative data disaggregated by sex, available data about violence are unsatisfactory in terms of both quality and quantity, are not harmonised across the various bodies that produce them, particularly law enforcement agencies and the judiciary, and are not disseminated regularly and accessibly at federal level.
Concerns are also expressed about the fact that funding for policies to combat violence against women is difficult to decipher, and about the downward trend and/or inadequacy of the resources allocated, including where co-ordination mechanisms are concerned. While the report welcomes the willingness of the public authorities to support and work in synergy with associations specialising in the prevention of violence against women, it emphasizes disparities in the support given to such associations across the country, with a tendency for the authorities in Flanders to rely on a voluntary sector which is more generalist, and structured around the sphere of well-being, public health and family. Lastly, the report draws the attention of the authorities to the financial insecurity faced by these associations, for want of sufficiently developed structural funding, geared to their needs.
In the area of specialist victim support services, substantial efforts have been made to promote the specialisation of structures able to receive and house women victims of gender-based violence. Shelters in Wallonia are too few in number, however, and do not cover the whole territory, especially in rural areas. In Flanders, meanwhile, there has been no reported expansion in the capacity of shelters in recent years, not least because priority is given to the non-residential approach over specialised care in a shelter. Accessibility is a problem for certain groups of women, such as mothers with boys over 12 years of age and older women, as well as for particularly vulnerable women, such as women seeking to exit prostitution or women with disabilities. A particularly problematic aspect of access to accommodation in shelters is the fact that those wishing to stay there must pay a fee, contrary to the requirement that such accommodation should be free of charge.
With regard to the issue of children who are victims of violence and exposed to violence, insufficient attention is paid to violence against women, both in terms of the courts called upon to rule on the exercise of the custody and visitation rights of perpetrators, and in terms of generalist and/or specialist services, which can introduce measures affecting the exercise of parental authority irrespective of the courts. The report finds that this is the result of practices which erroneously assume that children are no longer in danger once their parents have separated, and a tendency to equate acts of violence with disputes, and to employ mediation without taking the appropriate precautions. To remedy these shortcomings, GREVIO advocates the urgent adoption of a number of measures, including drawing up guidelines and/or reviewing existing practices and benchmarks for agencies involved in helping children, so that any action they take is based on a recognition of the risks and harmful consequences to which child witnesses are exposed, and ensuring appropriate use of the legal provisions which allow – including as a matter of urgency and on a temporary basis – the perpetrator’s custody and visitation rights to be curtailed, removed and/or subjected to safeguards whenever a situation of violence is ascertained.
Finally, GREVIO has identified a number of priority issues requiring further action to comply fully with the convention’s provisions:
- strengthen risk assessment and risk management procedures, including by integrating a gender perspective;
- develop a clear and shared strategy to create appropriate conditions for the provision of compulsory initial and in-service training for relevant professionals incorporating a gender approach;
- ensure that the programmes for the care and social and judicial follow-up of perpetrators of domestic violence and sexual violence incorporate a uniform gendered approach and deconstruction of sexist stereotypes;
- take appropriate steps to encourage further multi-agency co-operation;
- provide, in partnership with women’s rights NGOs, advice, information and guidance services;
- provide law enforcement agencies and the judiciary with the necessary resources, knowledge and means and ensure that criminal investigations and proceedings can be conducted effectively;
- undertake an in-depth review of immigration laws and policies in order to bring them into line with the obligations of the Istanbul Convention;
- take measures to tackle the shortage of places in reception centres.
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