Speeches

Madam President, when it comes to violations of international law and human rights, we must be careful and have serious evidence. My country, Greece, has managed since 2015 a large volume of migration flows in an exemplary way and with full respect for human life, when there were countries of the European Union that refused the solidarity due. The Greek Coast Guard has offered search and rescue services to more than 320,000 migrants, while in the critical period since March 2020, based on official data from 1,500 sea operations, fortunately there were few casualties. Nevertheless, my country is being subjected to unsubstantiated and unsubstantiated accusations of alleged push-backs, fake news and deliberate attacks. The national independent transparency authority in March 2022, in a report on complaints, explicitly states – among other things – that national, international and European legislation has been and is being fully respected, with no derogations. Similar findings were made by the official mission of the Committee on Civil Liberties in November 2021, in the presence of President Juan Fernando López Aguilar. As a Greek MEP, I am proud that Greece has been proven to effectively guard the Union's external borders, with respect for human life and international law. The real enemies of migrants have an identity, they are those who organize smugglers' networks and exploit human suffering and those who cover them up, earning millions. They are those who trade in people, participating in criminal organizations. But it is also those who, for the sake of economic and political interests, such as Turkey, consciously spread propaganda with fake news, spreading brazen lies. Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Union and each Member State have an obligation to examine, in full transparency, any serious complaint of infringement of rights. But they also have the duty to protect countries that are being deliberately attacked, avoiding adopting uncritically unfounded and unsound allegations with non-existent evidence.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in a split second, women in Afghanistan have lost the rights guaranteed by 20 years of hard work, the rights of every human being in the 21st century, to be able to express themselves, to socialise, to speak freely, to work, to be governed, to live in conditions of democracy and the rule of law, to fight for their family, their ambitions and their dreams. In one night, everything was lost. But hope has not been lost, the need for vindication and, above all, the power to claim. We have a moral obligation and a duty to stand by these women in every way possible. Each Member State and the European Union, united as a fist. The Afghan people, and in particular women fighting for equality and justice, do not deserve a regime of illiberalism and a flagrant violation of fundamental rights. It is the duty of all of us to actively support their legitimate demands for democracy, honouring the European principles and the code of values with which we have been walking for six decades.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am particularly honoured that my initiative and that of my political group to combat gender-based violence and cyberviolence is being voted on today in the last plenary session of the European Parliament this year. Gender-based violence, both online and offline, is deeply rooted in structural inequalities in our society. It is still silent and one of the most serious human rights violations. The situation is further aggravated by gender bias, gender stereotypes and the continuous manifestation of historically unequal power relations. In today's digital age, the internet and new technologies are rapidly creating new social digital spaces and have structurally changed the way people meet, communicate, interact, interact and actually coexist. Forms of gender-based violence, facilitated by the internet and new technologies, are becoming increasingly common. However, cyberviolence is not a new form of violence, but a continuation of the offline phenomenon. It has a profound impact on the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals, their dignity and lives at all levels. Nowadays, cyberviolence is emerging as one of the main forms of violence against women, with increasing rates across the European Union, which we should be concerned about. In particular, around 7% of women in the Union have experienced cyber harassment in the past 12 months and one in 10 women by the age of 15, while this form of violence appears to be more prevalent among younger internet users, with one in five young women in the European Union, aged 18 to 29, reporting online sexual harassment. At the same time, during the two years of the pandemic, the widespread confinement in homes with lockdown resulted in an increase in internet use, especially by girls and young women, resulting in a dramatic increase in this appalling crime, horizontally in all Member States of the European Union, but also around the world. The internet delineates a wide range of emerging forms of violence, ranging from the publication of offensive comments and images, the blatant violation of personal data, hate speech, and even intimidation with threats and sexual abuse, crimes provided for by the criminal codes of all countries. Because legislation is always slower than technology, but above all it monitors the evolution of life, it is important that we now take the steps that will allow us to shield the rights of victims of online violence from future crimes. In this context, the legislative initiative we are called to vote on today aims to tackle the increasingly evolving phenomenon of gender-based cyberviolence. It attempts a holistic approach to criminalise certain behaviours, but also to support and protect the victims of these behaviours. We call on the Commission to swiftly establish in a directive minimum rules on the definition of the crime of cyberviolence and to include cyberviolence in onerous crimes, using Article 23(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union as the legal basis. It also promotes actions to prevent this crime and measures to protect and rehabilitate victims. With regard to prevention, we are particularly focused on education, especially during adolescence, awareness-raising through information campaigns and, of course, the promotion of healthy standards, because with this legislative proposal we aim to eliminate gender stereotypes and promote research, if it is understood in depth that the root cause of all forms of gender-based violence is inequality and the morbid attitudes that have sustained it for years. In addition, in order to protect and support victims of gender-based cyberviolence, the report includes actions to protect and support victims, with a particular focus on the need to improve and facilitate reporting and avoid secondary victimisation. At this point, it is worth noting that the Directive will be a pillar of legislative guidance for the Member States of the European Union, which will one after the other adopt its provisions in national laws. Finally, the initiative underlines the need for a clear strategy to collect disaggregated and comparable data following bilateral and multilateral cooperation between Member States and reporting by relevant authorities. Violence as behaviour occurs in modern democratic countries due to unacceptable perceptions that are incompatible with the rule of law. In particular, violence against girls and women in any form, as an exercise of power, brutally violates fundamental rights, the European ideal and any human value, which is why zero tolerance is self-evident and one-way street. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope today to have strong support for this report to tackle the most shameful crime for our European values. I believe that we all agree that achieving the elimination of gender-based violence will be the hallmark of European culture for the authorities of the European Union and for European citizens.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, another day is devoted to combating violence against women and we note with sadness and disappointment that the phenomenon of gender-based violence is always widespread in the Union. The irrefutable elements are a slap in the face. Seventeen million women in the European Union suffer physical or sexual abuse every year, and 3,000 die as a result of acts of domestic violence. It's a shock. During the lockdown, incidents of violence and gender-based abuse increased dramatically, and the strong emergence of the specific form of gender-based cyberviolence is of concern. We strongly emphasise that violence is not only an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is a gross violation of human rights and a brutal human insult. At my own initiative, as rapporteur for the legislative report on gender-based cyberviolence, I asked the Commission to include cyberviolence in the onerous crimes referred to in Article 83(1) of the Treaty by means of a legislative proposal and to promote actions in the Member States both to prevent crime and to protect victims. When we arrive at repression, the crime has already been committed. Despite the intensity of the phenomenon, six Member States still have not ratified the Istanbul Convention. By the end of this parliamentary term, this issue must be finally resolved. Ladies and gentlemen, we must understand that we have an obligation to defend our values, because the mere existence of shameful phenomena of violence against women deprives us of the right to speak of European culture.