Donatella Porzi, Renew Europe CoR rapporteur on the upcoming report “Stopping gender-based violence – Cities and regions leading the way”, last week led a stakeholder consultation with Young Elected Politicians from across Europe sharing their views.
Porzi argues the report’s key points are the timely intervention to deal with aggressions; the training of professionals to strengthen their prevention; and the higher cooperation between territories to share best practices.
As a Councillor for the Italian region of Umbria, Porzi has a proven track record in advancing women’s rights. Earlier this year, she advocated for and proposed a Regional Commission of Inquiry on Femicide and all forms of gender-based violence in Umbria, which was then established on 8 March.
Matteo Brizzi, one of the participating Young Elected Politicians and a Councillor in the Tuscan town of Massa e Cozzile in Italy, said that the fight against gender-based violence should be a horizontal effort across all political groups.
“We have the duty to raise this issue at European level. As a concrete step, in our municipality, we set up a phone line where victims can call and book an appointment with psychologists and security forces to be protected,” he said.
During the consultation, education and gender budgeting arose as clear mechanisms for change. Educational establishments could provide appropriate training to support teachers in identifying and speaking about gender-based violence with students; while gender budgeting could prove to be a strong financial backbone to push towards stopping gender-based violence in schools, at work, in public spaces and online.
Other key points to highlight were the need for targeted campaigns with tools and methodologies for children and teachers, as well as the need for better trained police forces.
💶"We need #GenderBudgeting to really stop gender-based violence throughout all layers of our society - such as in schools and offices or online."
— Renew Europe CoR (@RenewEuropeCoR) June 28, 2023
Today we held a consultation with @EU_CoR's Young Elected Politicians on ending #GBV to get input into our upcoming CoR opinion 👇 pic.twitter.com/K2oaoZCODP