European Policies For Domestic Violence

Domestic violence has been widely recognised as an emerging problem which calls for actions at all levels. In Europe, after the campaign targeting the issue of domestic violence, the Council of Europe adopted the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women in 2011. Following the enforcement of the Convention, many perpetrator programs have been carried out alongside victim-focused programs. This paper analyses existing scientific reviews on the issue of solutions to domestic violence at a Europe-wide level. In conclusion, the Convention has some significance on reflecting current concepts of domestic violence but other than its symbolic importance, it is uncertain whether its convergence into intervention programs yields major breakthroughs in dealing with domestic violence or not.

Introduction

To begin with, some terms and ideas need to be clarified. Domestic violence is defined as: “a continuum of behaviour ranging from verbal abuse, physical, and sexual assault, to rape and even homicide. The vast majority of such violence, and the most severe and chronic incidents are perpetrated by men against women and their children” (Health, 2000). Although the term “domestic violence” consists of various types of violence, this paper focuses on violence and abuse by men against women.

It is essential to recognise the detrimental effects that domestic violence exert on victims. The damage can be physical (bruises, scars, fractures, etc.) or psychological and emotional (unstable mental state, anxiety, loss of self-confidence, etc.) and vary in terms of severity (Chrisler & Ferguson, 2006). Nevertheless, the impacts are likely to be long-lasting if not given enough awareness and proper treatment, which is still a dilemma for professionals (Shipway, 2004).

Domestic violence remains a widespread as well as a prominent and critical problem with relatively high prevalence recorded in many countries, including gender-equality pioneer nations (Garcia-Moreno, Jansen, Ellsberg, Heise, & Watts, 2006). It can be addressed as a major public health issue. Firstly, violence against women leads to enormous costs to both the victims and society, placing a great burden on the economy especially when considering the fact that health insurance plans do not cover all the costs for healthcare visits (Chrisler & Ferguson, 2006). Secondly, violence against women has been recognised as a human rights issue universally since 1993, meaning that more efforts and more responsibility into dealing with this problematic issue should be taken into account with a larger scale (Hagemann‐White, 2008).

This paper investigates interventions within the European context, particularly the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women as it plays a vital role in the process of dealing with domestic violence at a Europe-wide scale. Additionally, some intervention programs will also be identified to demonstrate how the Convention gets adopted accordingly.

1. Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women regarding Domestic Violence.

1.1. Context of the Convention

As regard to the first steps in establishing the Council of Europe Convention, it is vital to take notice of a campaign by the Council of Europe aiming at combating violence against women from 2006 to 2008. After an assessment of measures was carried out among states, it was concluded that shortcomings existed and there was a need for standardisation in the levels of support and protection across the European landscape. To this end, developing a convention was deemed necessary for the Council of Europe. In December 2008 the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe established an Ad Hoc Committee on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence with the mandate of preparing a legally binding instrument. The finalised convention document was adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 7 April 2011.

However, it is noteworthy to know that this Convention was not the first to recognize domestic violence. About 25 years ago, the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women was adopted by the OAS General Assembly and was an ingenious development compared to UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women since it specifically defined and addressed the issue of domestic violence. Therefore, it is argued that even though the establishment of the Council of Europe Convention can be seen as a major step of Europe in dealing with domestic violence, this event should be looked into as part of the changing perception of domestic violence on a large scale instead of a beginning of the process (R. McQuigg, 2012).

1.2. Defining Domestic Violence

The definitional approach to domestic violence of the Convention is strikingly different from the Inter-American Convention. A clear separation of domestic violence and violence against women is stated in the terminology whereas the actual term “domestic violence” is not mentioned in the Inter-American Convention on violence against women. This difference found between two conventions implies a significant change in the way domestic violence is perceived.

The more complex approach of the Council of Europe Convention regarding domestic violence also expands its scope to psychological abuse in addition to physical and sexual violence. The Convention also includes an economic view to domestic violence which arises from the heavy influence of the monetary issue on the world population these recent years. These new aspects of the Convention demonstrate that constant changes have been made in terms of how people define domestic violence in comparison to the past (R. McQuigg, 2012).

1.3. Provisions on Domestic Violence

The Council of Europe Convention on violence against women sets out very detailed measures to be undertaken by states upon ratification. For example, Article 5 emphasizes on the principle of state responsibility, with Article 5(1) stating that ‘Parties shall refrain from engaging in any act of violence against women and ensure that state authorities, officials, agents, institutions and other actors acting on behalf of the state act in conformity with this obligation.’ This can be considered a valuable step in recognising domestic violence in the sphere of the human rights issue. According to the traditional approach of human rights principles, the state had no obligation whatsoever to prevent breaching of individual rights or protect an individual from violation of rights by another private party, therefore, these principles initially did not include domestic violence. The Article mentioned places a heavier role in the protection of human rights on the state, securing more rights for victims of domestic violence.

Another example can be seen in Article 12-17 which focus on raising awareness and on changing societal attitudes. Article 12 states that measures must be adopted to promote changes in social and cultural behaviour patterns with a view to eradicating prejudices and practices based on the idea of inferiority of women. Similarly, Article 13 places a duty on states parties to promote and conduct awareness-raising campaigns to increase understanding among the general public of the need to prevent violence against women. Under article 15, state parties should provide training for professionals dealing with victims or perpetrators of violence against women on issues such as the detection of such violence. In reviewing these articles, McQuigg (2012) concluded that “these provisions are much more detailed than those contained in the Inter-American Convention on violence against women, a fact which may be explained by recent developments in the understanding of domestic violence and of the measures necessary to address this issue.”

1.4. The benefits of the Convention

The adoption of the Council of Europe Convention poses a far more valuable role than just a purely symbolic one regarding domestic violence. Its concept of ‘due diligence’ certainly put more weight on state parties to comply with the provisions upon ratification. Furthermore, even though the measures are not new, placing them in obligatory documents certainly indicates more proper and sophisticated ways of executing them.

In addition, the reporting procedure may prove to be advantageous to the victims as domestic violence is argued as a highly private matter and a high percentage of victims do not have the desire to bring their cases to court. For a long time, documenting the precise prevalence of domestic violence has been extremely challenging and estimations can only present the tip of an iceberg as many cases remain unknown and “unseen” (Walby & Allen, 2004). Thus, other alternatives other than extreme measures like litigation are certainly supported (R. J. A. McQuigg, 2012).

2. Perpetrator programs in Europe

One of the measures adopted in the Council of Europe Convention is for member states “to set up or support programmes aimed at teaching perpetrators of domestic violence to adopt non-violent behaviour in interpersonal relationships with a view to preventing further violence and changing violent behavioural patterns” (Article 16). Hence, it should be noted that besides programs aimed at providing support and services for victims, it is also important to pay attention to intervention programs dealing with perpetrators.

Many batterer programs have been in action ever since the Convention became valid in 2014 and even before that, followed by several evaluation studies on their results (Babcock, Green, & Robie, 2004; Davis & Taylor, 1999). Some focus on cognitive behavioural therapy for male perpetrators (Nesset et al., 2019; Smedslund, Dalsbo, Steiro, Winsvold, & Clench-Aas, 2007) while a few place an emphasis on the ‘time-out’ technique (Wistow, Kelly, & Westmarland, 2016). However, the outcomes vary greatly among programs and considerable shortcomings are identified in the designs of the studies, the process of data recording and the outcome measurements, making it hard to determine whether the results are reliable or representative enough of all the existing programs (Canales, Geldschläger, Nax, & Ponce, 2015; Ferrer-Perez & Bosch-Fiol, 2018). It should also be taken into consideration that the characteristics of the programs in each European country vary by a great deal and there are variations of study sizes along with the timeline of the studies (Canales et al., 2015).

Conclusion

Clearly, the changing viewpoint to domestic violence in the latest years has been reflected in the provisions of the Council of Europe Convention with a more intricate look on how domestic violence should be defined and handled. The legally binding footing of the provisions presents certain advantages to the implementation process of fundamental measures. In addition, due to the sensitive nature of domestic violence, the monitoring mechanism of reporting is greatly preferred over more extreme options such as litigation. However, the potential difficulties in implementing the Convention should not be overlooked and it is uncertain whether the Convention would be appropriate in the years to come considering the constant changes in understanding the phenomenon of domestic violence.

As parts of the measures undertaken by member states in response to the adoption of the Convention, perpetrator programs have been enforced, nonetheless, the results are not clear given that there are substantial disparities among European countries in many aspects and that many shortcomings exist. Therefore, improvements should be made in designing, performing and assessing the programs to achieve the best outcomes. Additionally, standardisation should also be considered in the organisation process so that further analysis could be done to validate and evaluate the effects of the batterer programs.

References

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