The EU’s commitment to combatting violence against women: rhetoric or reality?
Catherine Briddick
Background The EU has, at its heart, a legal commitment to combat discrimination, including that based on sex, and to promote gender equality. It has however, been subject to sustained and justified criticism for its failure(s) to live up to these commitments, particularly in relation to its treatment of migrant and refugee women. The announcement by the Commission in 2016 that the EU would sign and conclude (ratify) the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence Against Women (the Istanbul Convention) was, therefore, warmly received by activists and academics alike.