Can Europe protect its women? EU members at odds over gender-based crimes

The statistics are as damning as they are grim. In the EU, one in three women aged 15 or over has experienced physical or sexual violence – or both. More than half of all women in Europe have been sexually harassed. Only a fifth of women in the EU go to the police when an intimate partner assaults them. Meanwhile, EU member states have failed to agree on how to address the worst crimes against women. Several countries continue to resist calls by Brussels to define non-consensual sex as rape, punishable by a stiff jail sentence. Today, in 2023, there is no common set of rules in the EU to punish rape, to the growing dismay of many. As Europe prepares to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25, we discuss the issue with two MEPs.