EU wide laws offer chance to break the "vicious circle of growing gender - based violence"

Renew Europe wholeheartedly supports the European Commission's proposal to oblige governments to level up their ambition to end gender-based violence by, amongst others, classifying non-consensual sex as rape and criminalising female genital mutilation as well as cyber-violence against women.

Today proposed by the European Commission and the first of its kind, the directive to prevent gender-based violence symbolises a powerful step forward to end violence against women.

Soraya Rodríguez Ramos, coordinator in the Committee on Gender Equality and Women's rights (FEMM), says:

"Today is an important day for European women. The European Commission has taken a big step towards European tools to fight and prevent gender-based violence. Our political group has long been calling for a comprehensive and binding EU directive to break the vicious circle of increasing gender-based violence.

The introduction of common rules across the EU will improve prevention, increase protection and toughen the punishment of perpetrators. This is a key first step in the right direction."

Finally, the EU will also get tougher on cyber-violence. Renew Europe is pleased to see that the Commission proposes criminalising internet-stalking, online harassment, the online sharing of non-consensual intimate images, so-called 'revenge porn', and other growing digital gender-based threats.