| dc.description.abstract | Sexual violence against women continues to be one
of the most brutal forms of gender-based violence,
while at the same time being very much a taboo
subject. Victimisation research shows that a great
majority of sex crimes remain undisclosed. ‘The European Parliament resolution of 26 November 2009
on the elimination of violence against women’ and
‘the Council of the European Union’s conclusions of
8 March 2010 on the eradication of violence against
women in the European Union’ highlight the lack
of regular and comparable data on violence against
women in the European Union. In particular, there
is an evident lack of available and systematically
collected data on sexual violence. Women who
have experienced sexual violence still face secondary victimisation in their contacts with the police,
prosecutors, judiciary and healthcare institutions
because of, among other things, the lack of intervention protocols and training on sexual violence for
professionals. It is an EU priority to undertake eff ective actions to stop sexual violence. Therefore, EIGE
undertook the fi rst EU-wide study on sexual violence
in order to provide policymakers and experts with
reliable information, data and resources which will
help them to combat and prevent sexual violence
more eff ectively.
The study was commissioned by EIGE and was
carried out by the European Women’s Lobby in
2011. The study focused on the following forms of
sexual violence against women – rape, marital rape,
sexual abuse/assault, sexual coercion and sexual
harassment outside the workplace – and covered
resources used by the Member States and Croatia
between 2007 and 2010.
As a result, a database on sexual violence has been
developed. The database includes reliable and valuable information on sexual violence in the EU and
Croatia, such as:
• European and international resources;
• studies focusing on different aspects of
violence against women, including rape,
sexual assault/abuse/coercion and/or sexual
harassment;
• non-governmental organisations and their
resources on sexual violence;
• materials for professionals;
• materials for victims of sexual violence;
• awareness-raising campaigns and the actors
involved.
This collection of data is made accessible through
EIGE’s homepage and through its Resource and
Documentation Centre. | en_US |
