(29/11/2016)
LIBE-FEMM mini-hearing on the ratification of Istanbul Convention
General
• Ethnic and religious minority women in particular, Black European/People of African Descent Muslim and Roma women, face greater risk of violence fuelled by sexism as well as racism.
• Intersecting forms of discrimination limit access to justice and support and protection services.
Statistics
• The ENAR Forgotten women project, looking at the impact of Islamophobia on women, shows that Muslim women are more likely to be victims of hate crime and speech than Muslim men, especially if they wear a headscarf; Muslim women are targeted by threats and hate speech, violence and assault, and online hate; verbal and physical violence often mix, as well as racist and sexist insults or gestures; violence against Muslim women mainly happens in public spaces such as public transport, streets, markets and shops or in the workplace.
• In Belgium, 63.6% of Islamophobic hate crimes and offences between January 2012 and September 2015 concerned women, according to Collective against Islamophobia in Belgium.
• In France, 81.5% of Islamophobic violence recorded by the Collective against Islamophobia in France in 2014 targeted women, most of them wearing a visible religious symbol.
• In the Netherlands, over 90% of the victims of Islamophobic incidents reported to the organisation Meld Islamofobie in 2015 were Muslim women. 71% of the perpetrators were men, unknown to the victims.
• Roma women face attacks on their physical integrity such as forced sterilisation, which continues to occur in countries like Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
• Numerous female migrant domestic workers in Europe face indecent working hours and wages, but also physical and psychological abuse by their employers.
• In the UK, 51% of the domestic workers registered with the organisation Kalayaan, which works with migrant domestic workers (the majority of which are women), denounced physiological abuse and 20% physical abuse.
Recommendations
• Intersectionality should be part of an EU strategy to prevent and combat of all forms of violence against women and girls in Europe
• Not taking into account the intersection of gender, race and religion when tackling violence against women will result in millions of marginalised women in Europe falling through the net and being invisible and unheard victims.