27th Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Vienna
The European Observatory on Femicide Side Event at the 27th Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Vienna
During the Session of the Commission, the EOF presented at two events. The first event was a side event entitled Saving Women’s Lives through Data Collection. It took place on the 15th of May 2018 at the United Nations in Vienna.
The aim of this event was to present the European Observatory on Femicide and its goals to an international audience. The event was supported by Her Excellency, the President of Malta, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, with a video message. Her Excellency lent her support to the establishment of the Observatory and called on European authorities to support the establishment of the Observatory within the European Union. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences, Dr Dubravka Simonovic introduced the event with an address. Dr Simonovic has voiced her support for the establishment of regional femicide monitoring bodies as is evidenced in her reports and publications. In a 2016 report to the General Assembly, Dr Simonovic “elaborated modalities for establishment of femicide watch and/or observatory as an interdisciplinary panel of experts that collect and analyse data on femicides with the aims of prevention of such cases.”
Presentations from members of the European Observatory on Femicide, Dr Marceline Naudi together with Barbara Stelmaszek, and Ksenia Meshkova followed, who described the aims and goals of the Observatory as well as the methods for setting up a European system for data collection on femicide, respectively.
Event Programme
The second event was a special event entitled Ending Impunity for Gender-Related Killings of Women and Girls/Femicide – State Responsibility and Accountability. It took place on the 16th of May 2018 at the United Nations in Vienna.
According to the event’s flyer, the event was held in order to “encourage Member States to strengthen their crime and criminal justice responses, when prosecuting cases of gender motivated killings of women.” Additionally, the event served to “promote the role of international law and available international instruments in holding individual states accountable for failing to prosecute cases of such kind. It should remind Member States, UN agencies, academia, victims’ representatives, civil society and other relevant bodies to have greater cooperation with each other, in order to exchange good practices and effective strategies.”
The event’s panellists included Dr Simonovic (United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences), Tiziana Zannini (Executive at the Department for Family Policies, Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers), Angela Me (Chief Research and Trend Analysis Branch, UNODC), Lillian Hofmeister (Member of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and a former judge), Henrike Landre (Co-Chair, UN Studies Association and Manager of the Femicide Knowledge Hub). Marceline Naudi (First Vice-President of GREVIO and Scientific Director at the European Observatory on Femicide) was among the panellists presenting on the Observatory and its aims as well as on the Istanbul Convention and its provision related to prosecution of perpetrators. Furthermore, Dr Naudi presented on the connection between the Istanbul Convention and femicide, mainly that the Convention requires states to take action to prevent femicide through various means, including prompt and appropriate response by law enforcement agencies, emergency barring orders and protection orders, and risk assessment, among others.