4
Oct
2021
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The impact of intimate partner violence and custody rights on women and children (debate)
Mr President, Commissioner, twenty-seven women were killed in Portugal last year in the context of domestic violence. Violence against women and children is a scourge that we have been dealing with for a long time. Our authorities, our courts, act late and often ineffectively. In my country, there is still a feeling of impunity among the aggressors. Verbal aggressions, and even physical aggressions, rarely reach the courts, are rarely convicted, and even when this happens the result is almost always a suspended sentence. Gender-based violence is intolerable, violates the basic principles of the European Union, violates human rights. I therefore welcome the rapporteurs and follow all their recommendations, including that the Commission and the Council consider gender-based violence to be a particularly serious crime with a cross-border dimension. But I still argue that we should go further: Member States should be urged to do what is necessary, including even aggravating the penal frameworks, to show aggressors that their actions have consequences that will not be clear.