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Eliminating violence against women is a high priority for the Republic of Cyprus, said Speaker of the House of Representatives Anita Demetriou during an event held on Friday 18 February at the Embassy of Ireland in Nicosia.
Mrs. Demetriou was speaking at an event organised by the Embassy of Ireland on the occasion of St Brigid's Day, during which Irish diplomatic missions celebrate the creativity, leadership and talent of women in Ireland and around the world, and focused on the prevention and response to gender-based violence.
As the Speaker said, gender-based violence remains one of the most widespread and largely unpunished human rights violations in the world, and awareness of violence against women and gender-based crimes has increased further in the last two years due to the COVID pandemic. Governments have adopted measures that have had an undesirable impact on the increase in domestic violence globally, a situation that has unfortunately been observed in Cyprus as well.
According to Ms Demetriou, as many states have adopted or revised their legislation in response to various forms of violence against women, significant developments have also occurred in Cyprus over the past two years with the adoption or revision of legislation on a number of issues related to gender-based violence against women.
In this context, the Istanbul Convention has been ratified and comprehensive legislation criminalising all forms of violence against women has been adopted for the effective implementation of the Convention. This new legislation defines the offences of violence against women and domestic violence and includes provisions for the prevention, prosecution and eradication of this offence, she added.
. Demetriou went on to say that the House of Representatives has also enacted up to innovative laws to criminalize harassment and stalking, as well as to combat sexism, the first country in the Council of Europe to implement such a legislative reform, adding that a draft law was recently submitted to the House of Representatives to introduce into the Criminal Code the crime of femicide, which is the intentional murder of a woman by a man on the basis of her gender. According to the provisions of the draft law, this crime will be punishable by life imprisonment, she stressed.
In conclusion, the Speaker of Parliament noted that all these developments are aimed at protecting women from violence, demonstrate society's condemnation of these forms of violence and constitute an important step towards ending impunity.
During the event, initiatives undertaken by the government, the higher education sector and the Irish police were also presented.
In a taped video message, Ireland's Justice Minister Helen Mackenti outlined the main points of the country's new national strategy to prevent and respond to gender-based violence, whose main objective is zero tolerance for domestic, sexual and gender-based violence and which is based on the four key pillars of the Istanbul Convention - prevention, protection, prosecution and coordinated policies. The Irish Minister also highlighted the important role of education in all schools, workplaces and places of socialisation, as well as her Department's work to reform the criminal justice system to ensure that vulnerable victims are treated with sensitivity, respect and professionalism at every step of their difficult journey.
On behalf of the Irish higher education sector, Professor Louise Crawley of Cork University College presented the sexual violence prevention programme Bystander intervention. According to the Irish professor, the aim of the programme is to train staff and students to understand and recognise acts of sexual aggression, harassment and violence and identify the risks of normalising abuse, while empowering and upgrading the skills of staff and students to safely intervene and claim a safer campus and society.
Rachel Kiernan, a member of the Irish police, who is currently seconded to UNFICYP, outlined the powers available to the force under a law passed in 2019, which includes provisions to address physical assault, sexual assault, financial assault and psychological assault.
Finally, Alexandra Attalidou, MP of the Ecologists' Movement, the Head of the European Commission Office in Cyprus Myrto Zambarta and representatives of local NGOs participated in the discussion that followed the main presentations with the Speaker of the Parliament and the invited speakers, with the protection of women in politics, the regulation of online hate speech against women and the importance of women role models being among the main points discussed.
Source: CNA
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