Towards a Transformative Conceptualisation of Violence Against Women ‐ A Critical Frame Analysis of Council of Europe Discourse on Violence Against Women
| Date | 01 May 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12190 |
| Published date | 01 May 2016 |
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Towards a Transformative Conceptualisation of
Violence Against Women - A Critical Frame Analysis
of Council of Europe Discourse on Violence
Against Women
Shazia Choudhry∗
Much academic attention has been devoted to violence against women (VAW) in Europe and
research has focused on the mounting policy reform initiatives and capacity building strategies
in the EU. Council of Europe initiatives in this area have, surprisingly, by contrast, remained
under-researched. This paper seeks to fill the gap in the literature byengag ing in an examination
and critique of the ways in which the Council of Europe has incorporated and framed VAW
within various legal and policy initiatives. It will employa methodology of cr itical frame analysis
as theorised by the literature on social movements, and anti-essentialist critiques within feminist
literature to ask: how VAW is problematised; what solutions are offered; wherethey are located;
to what extent they are gendered; and who has a voice in these policy and legal texts.
Much academic attention has recently been devoted to violence against women
(VAW) in Europe as both a gender equality and human rights concern. Partic-
ularly in the fields of social policy and political science, research has focused on
the mounting policy reform initiatives and capacity building strategies in the
European Union (EU).1Those policies aim to tackle the problem as part of
the EU’s commitment to fundamental rights and gender equality.2Although
laudable, they are relatively recent. VAW was slow to reach the EU agenda
∗Reader in Law, Queen Mar y University of London. I am grateful to Eric Heinze and Rosemary
Hunter and the anonymous reviewer for their ver y helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier
draft.
1 On the causes of violence against women see for example: M. Martinez et al, ‘Perspectives and
standards for good practice in data collection on interpersonal violence at European level’ 2007
at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/vaw_indicators_2007/papers/Supporting%20
Paper%20CAHRV.pdf and M. Schrottle et al, ‘Comparative reanalysis of prevalence of
violence against women and health impact data in Europe – obstacles and possible so-
lutions. Testing a comparative approach on selected studies’ 2006 at http://www.cahrv.
uniosnabrueck.de/reddot/D_20_Comparative_reanalysis_of_prevalence_of_violence_pub.pdf
(all URLs were last accessed on 24 March 2015). On the Europeanisation of gender equality
policies see: S. Roth, Gender Politics in the Expanding European Union (New York, Oxford:
Berghahn Books, 2008); O. Avdeyeva, ‘When do States Comply with International Treaties?
Policies on Violence against Women in Post-communist Countries’ (2007) 51 International
Studies Quarterly 877. On gender mainstreaming and its effects on gender policy in the European
Union see J. Kantola, Gender and the European Union (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2010) and M. Verloo, ‘Mainstreaming Gender Equality in Europe: A Critical Frame Analysis
Approach’ (2005) 117 The Greek Review of Social Research 11.
2 In terms of policy, the Commission has followed a dual approach to gender equality since
1996, namely specific actions plus gender mainstreaming (COM (96) 67: ‘Incorporating equal
opportunities for women and men into all Community policies and activities’ 21 February
1996) which have, more recently, specified violence against women as an area of concern.
C2016 The Author.The Moder n Law Review C2016 The Modern Law Review Limited. (2016) 79(3) MLR 406–441
Published by John Wiley& Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
Shazia Choudhry
due largely to a perception that it was not within the scope of the EU com-
petences.3Furthermore, until the passage of the Directive on the European
Protection Order4none of these initiatives included measures capable of legal
enforcement by victims of violence.
By focusing on the various discourses employed in a selection of EU policy
texts,5these fields of research have nevertheless identified some key issues.
First, in a number of EU countries, VAW is framed in terms of human r ights,
criminal justice or public health. Rarely is it framed as a problem for gender
equality. These framings often overshadow the gender equality aspect and risk
de-emphasising VAW’s social causes.6Second, the broadening of EU political
The first comprehensive policy framework was adopted in 2000 (COM (2000) 335, ‘Towards
a Community Framework Strategy on Gender Equality’ (2001-2005)’ 7 June 2000) and was
followed in 2006 bythe ‘Roadmap for equality between Women and Men’ (COM (2006) 92 ‘A
Roadmap for Equality between Women and Men 2006-2010’ Brussels, 1 March 2006) which
specifically identified the ‘eradication of all forms of gender-related violence’ as one of six key
areas of priority action for the period 2006-2010 and set out ways to improve gover nance of
gender equality policies. This was followed in 2010 by the adoption by the Commission of
the ‘Women’s Charter’ (COM (2010) 78, ‘A Strengthened Commitment to Equality between
Women and Men’ 5 March 2010) which identifies ‘dignity, integrity and the end of gender
based violence’ as one of five principles that will underpin actions during this Commission’s
term of office. A further step was the adoption on 18 May 2011 of a package of measures aimed
at strengthening the rights of victims of crime and which recognised the gender dimension to
victims’ rights – ‘Proposal for a Directiveof the European Parliament and the Council establishing
minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime’ (COM (2011)
275 final, 18 May 2011).
3 C. Montoya, ‘International Initiativeand Domestic Refor ms: EuropeanUnion Effor ts to Com-
bat Violence against Women’ (2009) 5 Politics and Gender 325. The Lisbon Treaty increased
the scope for European Union action in many areas where the Council of Europe already has
significant experience and expertise. This has led to increased cooperation on issues such as
fighting human trafficking, the sexual exploitation of children and violence against women. It
has also opened the way for the European Union itself to sign up to the European Convention
on Human Rights, and to other Council of Europe agreements.
4 The Directive on the European Protection Order, Directive 2011/99/EU OJ L 338/2, 21
December 2011 was passed within the competence created by the Treaty of the Functioning
of the European Union, Art 82(1) and provides that judicial cooperation in criminal matters
in the Union shall be based on the principle of mutual recognition of judgments and judicial
decisions. The Directive also enables anyone protected under criminal law in one EU state to
apply for similar protection if they move to another Member State and will apply to victims or
possible victims who need protection ‘against a criminal act of another person which may, in
any way, endanger his life, physical, psychological and sexual integrity . . . as well as his dignity
or personal liberty’. Such acts could include harassment, abduction, stalking and ‘other forms
of indirect coercion’ and the Directive should be of significant benefit to victims of domestic
violence. However, the effectiveness of a measure which is based upon mutual recognitionrather
than harmonisation has been questioned and particularly so when the available research has
demonstrated that there is insufficient uniformity amongst protection measures across member
states. See S. Van der Aa, ‘Protection Orders in the European Member States: Where Do We
Stand and Where Do We Go from Here? (2012) 18 European Journal on Criminal Policy & Researc h
183.
5 Council resolutions and recommendations; decisions, communications and reports of the Com-
mission and the EU Presidency; resolutions and reports of the European Parliament, particularly
by the Committee of Women’s Rights and more generally speeches, press declarations, research
or information reports written and published by the European institutions.
6 A.Krizsan,M.Bustelo,A.HadjiyanniandF.Kamoutsi,‘DomesticViolence:APublicMatter’
in M. Verloo(ed), Multiple Meanings of Gender Equality, A Critical Frame Analysis of Gender Policies
in Europe (Budapest, New York: Central European Press, 2007).
C2016 The Author. The Modern Law Review C2016 The Modern Law Review Limited.
(2016) 79(3) MLR 406–441 407
Transformative Conceptualisation of Violence Against Women
discourse on gender equality to include VAW has not always led to a deeper
reading of the problem in terms of gender equality.7One of the dangers of the
strategic integration of gender interests into larger, more inclusive issues on the
policy agenda is that it can lead to the fragmentation of the issues and a loss of
authority of voices supporting gender equality approaches on concerns such as
VAW.8More recent are the calls to balance universality with intersectionality
when considering VAW. Broadly speaking these calls reflect the continuous
debate within feminist legal theory regarding the need to balance the claim that
human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality,
place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or
any other status and the counter claim that our various identities, such as race,
class, gender, sexuality, etc, necessarily differentiate us from people who do
not have those identities. These calls respond to a growing tendency towards
the culturalisation9(the articulation of culture as the only explanation behind
certain forms of violence and/or focusing exclusively on culturalised forms
of violence) of VAW in EU policy texts that serve not only to ignore the
gendered nature of violence but also to create a dichotomy between ‘insiders’
(non-violent Europeans) and ‘outsiders’ (violent others).10
Law and policy initiatives on VAW within the Council of Europe have, by
contrast, remained under-researched.11 This is surprising given that the Council
of Europe has been responsible for a number of policy and legal initiatives
on VAW, most notably Recommendation Rec (2002)5 of the Committee of
Ministers to member states on the protection of women against violence (Rec
(2002)) and the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against
Women and Domestic Violence (the Istanbul Convention), which was the first
European Convention devoted specifically to the issue12 and adopted in 2011.
This paper therefore seeks to fill the gap in the literature by engaging in
an examination and critique of the ways in which the Council of Europe
has incorporated and framed VAW within various legal and policy initiatives.
7 E. Lombardo and P. Meier, ‘Framing Gender Equality in the European Union PoliticalDiscour se’
(2008) 15 Social Politics 101. The authors consider this is possibly due to the lack of EU
competence in areas beyondthe labour market, the official status of the various policy documents
dealing with the issue of gender equality,and differences of voice and reference in the documents.
8 J. Kantola, ‘European Union and National Gender Equality Politics: The Case of Domestic Vi-
olence in Britain and Finland’ Second Pan European Conference on EU Politics, Bologna,Italy,
24-26 June 2004 at http://www.jhubc.it/ecpr-bologna/docs/242.pdf. A. Krizsan, A. Pantjens,
and I. VanLamoen, ‘Domestic Violence: Who’s Problem’ (2005) 117 The Greek Review of Social
Research 63. Krizsan, Bustelo, Hadjiyanni and Kamoutsi, n 6 above.
9 C. Montoya and L. Rolandsen Agustin, ‘The Othering of Domestic Violence: The EU and
Cultural Framings of Violence against Women’ (2013) 20 Social Politics 534. This argument will
be discussed in detail later in the paper.
10 ibid.
11 Or have focused on one particular aspect such as the Convention of Preventing and Com-
bating Violence against Women – see K. Vogel and B. T. McInnes, ‘Understanding European
Institutional Policy Discourse on the Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Com-
bating Violence Against Women through Automated Content Analysis’ Proceedings of the
Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference, 11-14 Apr il 2013, Chicago, IL at
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/bthomson/publications/mpsa2013-paper.pdf.
12 The Inter American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence
Against Women (Convention of Belem do Para) was adopted on 6 September 1994; it entered
into force on 3 May 1995.
408 C2016 The Author. The Modern Law Review C2016 The Modern Law Review Limited.
(2016) 79(3) MLR 406–441
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