Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Removedf) accelerate the implementation of international commitments to further prevent and respond to all forms of violence against women and girls in both public and private spheres, including female genital mutilation, forced marriage, the non-consensual sharing of intimate or manipulated material, cyberstalking, cyber-harassment, cyber-flashing and cyber incitement to violence or hatred;

Added(f) take action to fully implement existing commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment, ensuring the protection of women’s equal human rights and fundamental freedoms without discrimination, to advance their participation in public life; encourage and take action to ensure substantive gender equality and institutional gender parity at all levels of decision-making;

Removedg) take action to fully implement existing commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment, ensuring the protection of women’s equal human rights and fundamental freedoms without discrimination, to advance their participation in public life;

Added(g) emphasise the importance of guaranteeing women and girls effective access to justice at all levels, including clear reporting channels and the swift processing of protection and support measures; eliminate obstacles, particularly for disadvantaged and vulnerable groups of women, who often face barriers in accessing justice, owing to the multiplying effect of limited and underfunded resources within the justice system, as well as socio-economic and socio-cultural factors and intersectional discrimination; ensure adequate, victim-centred support and protection services in cases of gender-based violence, and prevent any form of secondary victimisation when reports are made to the police or during court proceedings; call for enhanced international cross-border mechanisms to ensure that victims of violence – especially migrants, refugees and people in need of international protection – can access justice across different countries; highlight that economic inequality remains a significant obstacle to accessing justice;

Removedh) stress that women’s rights and gender equality are fundamental human rights essential to the rule of law, resilient and inclusive democracies, and the core values of the EU; emphasise that it is deplorable that millions of women and girls, especially in conflict and displacement contexts, continue to face discrimination, violence and the denial of their dignity and agency; reiterate that rape remains one of the most widespread human rights violations globally; stress the importance of consent-based rape legislation;

Added(h) emphasise the need to recognise gender apartheid as a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute and advocate for its international recognition, in order to ensure access to justice, accountability and the possibility of prosecution by international courts; support the definition of the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls of gender apartheid as acts within an institutionalised system of gender-based discrimination and domination;

Removedi) promote the representation of women within the judiciary and its governing bodies with a view to dismantling structural barriers perpetuated by a patriarchal and androcentric justice system;

Added(i) ensure the exchange of best practices, including through judicial training, regarding the psychological, mental, physical, coercive and financial impacts of gender-based violence; strengthen and expand dedicated courts, divisions or specialised procedures for gender-based violence or designate specialised judges within regular courts; commit to and encourage the integration of a gender perspective in judicial decision-making; encourage the possibility of providing female lawyers for victims upon request; promote gender-sensitive, victim-centred training for officials coming into contact with victims, in line with their functions, including police officers, prosecutors and judges, to prevent secondary victimisation, tackle gender stereotypes and biases, and ensure respectful, trauma-sensitive, non-discriminatory treatment of victims;

Removed2. Instructs its President to forward this recommendation to the Council, the Commission and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and, for information, to the EU Special Representative for Human Rights.

Added(j) stress the importance of ensuring that women and girls have accessible, comprehensive and coherent information about their rights, support and protection, through every step of the judicial process, especially in cases of violence against women or domestic violence, including through awareness-raising initiatives; emphasise the need to support grassroots legal empowerment programmes that help women and girls understand and exercise their rights and encourage the establishment of both general and specialist support services for victims of crimes, and ensure their effective coordination and methods of referral; emphasise the key role these services play in informing victims about their rights and facilitating their access to justice; ensure that the information provided to victims is easy to access and available in plain language; promote the existence and use of victim helplines and ensure that they are available through various channels, including telephone and information and communication technologies; recognise that limited access to information and communications technologies in many countries worldwide hampers the full realisation of the potential of women and girls;

Added(k) commit to ensuring access to legal aid for victims from the outset of civil or criminal proceedings and promote this approach globally, together with international partners; call for the incorporation of a gender perspective into all relevant policies, laws, procedures, programmes and practices in order to address specific barriers faced by women and girls, including limited awareness of rights, discriminatory attitudes and gender stereotypes within justice systems, and the insufficient availability of specialised services, particularly in rural and remote areas; promote the practice of assessing women and girls’ right to legal aid solely based on their own financial means, independent of their husbands’, partners’ or families’ income, which is especially relevant for cases of gender-based violence; highlight the importance of gender-disaggregated data on access to justice, case outcomes, legal aid usage and barriers, in order to support evidence-based policymaking;

Added(l) advance women’s leadership, equal participation and increased representation of women within the judiciary and its governing bodies and take active steps towards promoting the broad access of women from minorities and marginalised groups to the legal profession, with a view to dismantling structural barriers within the justice system and to fostering an equitable and representative judiciary, thereby ensuring equal opportunities;

Added(m) promote and advocate for concrete actions and measures to ensure women’s participation and leadership in decision-making in public life, including in the areas of foreign policy, defence and security and the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts and crises; underline the need for a common tracking methodology for collecting data on women’s participation in these sectors;

Added(n) actively support and promote the 2024 CEDAW General recommendation No 40 on equal and inclusive representation of women in decision-making systems, defined as 50:50 parity between women and men in all their diversity in terms of equal access to and equal power within decision-making systems;

Added(o) encourage meaningful participation of women at all levels of decision-making in foreign, security and security policy, as well as in conflict resolution, both in the EU and globally;

Added(p) take action to urgently and fully implement existing commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment, ensuring the protection of women’s equal human rights and fundamental freedoms without discrimination, including through strong public institutions and policies that guarantee equal opportunities, to advance their effective and full participation in public life, thus facilitating their engagement in decision-making processes; condemn online hate speech targeting women and its impact on their participation in public life, and support media literacy and digital safety programmes for women and girls;

Added(q) stress that empowering women and women’s rights organisations and supporting women’s participation in external policy- and conflict-related decision-making fosters better outcomes for communities, access to justice and more sustainable peace; clearly condemn recent funding cuts to women’s, women’s rights and civil society organisations that fight gender-based violence and empower women to access justice; secure, furthermore, sustainable funding and legal protection for feminist and LGBTIQ+ organisations, especially grassroots groups under attack owing to shrinking civic space and restrictive laws targeting non-governmental organisations;

Added(r) defend the mandate of the UN CSW in the light of efforts by the United States and aligned countries to weaken agreed gender-equality priorities, and express concern that such political pressure, combined with funding cuts to gender-equality programmes, risks undermining the effectiveness and credibility of the CSW; step up development aid funding to compensate for the gap left following the rollback of the US Agency for International Development; reaffirm its full support for the work of UN Women, which is a central actor in the UN system for advancing the rights of women in all their diversity and bringing together all relevant stakeholders to generate policy change and coordinate actions; urge all UN member states, together with the EU, to ensure adequate funding for UN Women; commit to adequate funding for gender equality and women’s rights, including SRHR;

Added(s) apply gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting to all relevant EU policy areas, including external action; stress the need for states to allocate adequate, sufficient and predictable funding for gender-responsive legal aid and support services, especially for survivors of gender-based violence, and sufficient access to compensation, since current barriers disproportionately affect women’s access to justice; stress the importance of addressing practical, regional and accessibility-related barriers that hinder women’s and vulnerable groups’ access to justice, particularly in rural, remote and economically disadvantaged regions; underline the specific challenges faced by women with disabilities, elderly women and single parents, including physical accessibility obstacles and a lack of tailored support services; recognise that legal aid is often chronically underfunded or undervalued, creating yet another barrier for women in crisis situations seeking access to justice, which disproportionately affects women in lower socio-economic positions and those most vulnerable, in terms of accessing justice when their rights are infringed;

Added(t) reaffirm the EU’s commitment to combating and ending impunity for gender-based violence, including sexual violence; advocate for eliminating impunity for all forms of gender-based violence, including domestic violence, sexual violence, trafficking and harmful practices; accelerate the implementation of international commitments to further prevent and respond to all forms of violence against women and girls in both public and private spheres, including rape, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, so-called conversion practices, the non-consensual sharing of intimate or manipulated material, deepfakes and AI-generated content, cyberstalking, cyber-harassment, cyber-flashing, cyber incitement to violence or hatred, hate speech and hate crimes; stress the importance of addressing the threat posed by AI-manipulated technology and advocate, at EU and international level, for stronger action against online violence, both of which disproportionately affect women and hinder their full participation in public life; urge very large online platforms and very large online search engines to allow for public scrutiny of their annual risk assessments and mitigation measures related to gender-based violence to enable better research and solutions;

Added(u) emphasise that the lack of or the denial of access to SRHR, including safe and legal abortion, constitutes a form of gender-based violence and a violation of human and fundamental rights; call for efforts to ensure broad and equitable access to SRHR globally, and reaffirm that access to safe and legal abortion is a fundamental component of women’s SRHR and essential to their bodily autonomy; demand safe access to abortion, contraception and maternal care for everyone, particularly emergency contraception, testing for sexually transmitted infections and post-exposure prophylaxis; ensure access to gender-sensitive mental health services for young women and LGBTIQ+ people, acknowledging mental health as vital to participation and equality;

Addedv) ensure that EU external policies actively promote access to SRHR as part of achieving the SDGs;

Added(w) reiterate that rape remains one of the most widespread human rights violations globally; stress the importance of adopting consent-based rape legislation as an essential element of a comprehensive approach to combating sexual violence against women and girls; advocate for a consent-based definition of rape as a universal standard worldwide, aimed at enhancing legal protections and ensuring that sexual violence is defined by the absence of consent, rather than solely by the use of violence, coercion or threat; promote the concept that the silence of, and absence of resistance by, the victims do not constitute consent; underline that neither prior consent nor an existing relationship imply ongoing or future consent for any sexual acts; call, in this regard, on all countries to introduce a consent-based definition of rape and to guarantee survivors access to justice;

Added(x) condemn, in the strongest terms, the use of rape and other forms of sexual violence as a weapon of war and recall that such acts may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity under international law; actively work to ensure the prosecution of and accountability for these types of crimes at international level, including through the application of the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime; strengthen support for international efforts to document these crimes in ongoing conflicts and for prevention measures; call, furthermore, for active support for all initiatives aimed at ensuring accountability for perpetrators and access to justice for survivors of rape as a weapon of war, recognising that in accordance with UN Security Council Regulation 1820 (2008), rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, or acts contributing to genocide; promote the close cooperation of Eurojust with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the documentation of wartime rape, abuse and other forms of sexual violence in Ukraine, and call for the EU, Eurojust and the ICC to further strengthen coordinated, trauma-informed and victim-centred documentation efforts, and create cooperation frameworks globally for other conflict zones, to ensure that victims are identified, protected and able to access justice;

Added(y) emphasise the importance of the full recognition of trans women as women, noting that their inclusion is essential for the effectiveness of any gender-equality and anti-violence policies; call for recognition of and equal access for trans women to protection and support services;

Added(z) call on all countries that have not yet ratified the Istanbul Convention to do so and to promote the global adoption of its comprehensive standards for combating violence against women and domestic violence;

Added(aa) reaffirm the right of women and girls subjected to acts of persecution owing to gender-based violence to seek asylum; call on governments and international bodies to address specific risks faced by women and girls in migration and to implement gender-responsive policies, including the establishment of safe and legal routes, the strengthening of the protection of women from violence in reception centres and the improvement of age-assessment procedures; call for the recognition of gender-based persecution and gender apartheid as grounds for seeking asylum;

Added(ab) advocate for girls’ right to inclusive, equitable and quality education, as a key driver of empowerment and the achievement of gender equality, equipping them with the knowledge, skills, opportunities and capacities that are essential for their whole lives, enabling them to claim their rights, access justice, participate fully in public life, and combat gender-based violence; point out the importance of promoting women’s empowerment through inclusive, equitable and quality education, training and life-long learning, which are of vital importance for fighting gender stereotypes, attitudes and prejudices in all their dimensions and combating persisting inequalities; recall the importance of preventing gender-based violence through adequate campaigns and other actions, including by increasing digital media literacy, as well as through relevant, targeted education on age-appropriate, comprehensive relationships and sexuality, in order to increase knowledge about bodily integrity; highlight the need for a deeper understanding of anti-rights and anti-gender movements, including disinformation on gender equality, the incel phenomenon and misogyny and, in particular, their online manifestation known as the manosphere; advocate for more active policies to counter these phenomena and their narratives;

Added(ac) emphasise that war and conflict have a disproportionate and devastating impact on women, and advocate for peace and inclusive negotiations worldwide as essential pathways to ending conflict and the violence women and girls face in these settings; recognise the remarkable work carried out by women serving in UN peacekeeping missions across conflict zones; stress that women’s rights and gender equality are essential to the rule of law and resilient and inclusive democracies; highlight, with concern, that millions of women and girls, particularly in contexts of conflict and displacement, continue to experience discrimination, violence, and the denial of their dignity and agency;

Added(ad) commit the EU to a feminist foreign, development and security policy, which is inclusive and intersectional, prioritising the needs of women and LGBTIQ+ human rights defenders;

Added(ae) stress that femicide, defined as the gender-related killing of women and girls, constitutes one of the most extreme forms of gender-based violence and represents a grave violation of universal fundamental rights; strongly condemn the absence of a harmonised definition of this crime and the persistent inconsistencies in data collection and reporting on it, which severely hinders effective prevention and evidence-based policymaking; call for global recognition of this crime and global efforts to eliminate femicide;

Added2. Instructs its President to forward this recommendation to the Council, the Commission, and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and, for information, to the EU Special Representative for Human Rights.