Protection Against Violence: The Challenges of Incorporating Human Rights’ Standards to Procedural Law

In the past three decades, violence against women has received considerable attention in human rights law. While traditionally a matter for national law, today several human rights instruments place obligations on state parties to protect victims from gender-based violence, for instance, via judicial protection orders. National procedural law doctrines, however, have not been particularly adaptive to these demands. In this article we discuss the structures, principles, and mechanisms of procedural law in relation to the demands from human rights law.</p

A Comparative Perspective on the Protection of Hate Crime Victims in the European Union

Hate crime victims involved in a criminal procedure experience difficulties that are different from problems encountered by other victims. In trying to meet the specific procedural needs of hate crime victims many EU Member States have introduced protective measures and services in criminal proceedings, but the adopted approaches are widely disparate. By reporting the results of an EU-wide comparative survey into hate crime victims within national criminal procedures the authors aim to: (1) make an inventory of the national (legal) definitions of hate crime and the protection measures available (on paper) for hate crime victims; and (2) critically discuss certain national choices, inter alia by juxtaposing the procedural measures to the procedural needs of hate crime victims to see if there are any lacunae from a victimological perspective. The authors conclude that the Member States should consider expanding their current corpus of protection measures in order to address some of the victims’ most urgent needs

Op verhaal komen.:Naar een afgewogen, consistent en betaalbaar stelsel voor compensatie van slachtoffers van een strafbaar feit.

Rapport Adviescollege onderzoek stelsel schadevergoeding voor slachtoffers van strafbare feite

A scoping review and thematic analysis of social and behavioural research among HIV-serodiscordant couples in high-income settings.

CAPRISA, 2015.Abstract available in pdf

Lo stalking quale forma di violenza (domestica) contro le donne: due ipotesi di genere?

Stalking is often interpreted within the framework of violence against women or domestic violence. Contrary to research on domestic violence, the gender-specificity or the domestic violence context of stalking has received only little attention. Overwhelming empirical evidence suggests that stalking ‘disproportionally affects women’ in the sense that women run a higher risk of falling victim to stalking. Some studies also attribute more severe consequences to female victimization of stalking.There is furthermore evidence that a former (violent) relationship increases the risk of stalking victimization and that a prior romantic involvement has an influence on the seriousness and duration of the stalking. As a result, stalking can be considered a form of (domestic) violence against women. Although the violence against women and the domestic violence paradigms were once very useful in generating attention for the problem of stalking, and although empirical evidence suggests that these perspectives remain useful to date, the fact that stalking is a heterogeneous phenomenon, affecting male and female, intimate and non-intimate victims, should always be kept in mind. Legislation which explicitly (e.g., by reserving protection orders to victims of ex-intimate stalking) or inadvertently (e.g., by using a fear-requirement or by including gender-specific stalking tactics) excludes certain offenders or victims, as is the case in some EU Member States and the CoE Convention on Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, should be avoided.Nonostante lo stalking venga spesso interpretato come un aspetto della violenza domestica o contro le donne, la sua specificità di genere o il suo legame con le precedenti forme di violenza non sono stati adeguatamente approfonditi. Da un punto di vista empirico è ovvio che gli atti persecutori “colpiscono in maniera sproporzionata le donne”, nel senso che i soggetti di sesso femminile sono maggiormente a rischio di divenire vittime, così come secondo alcuni studi subirebbero conseguenze più importanti. La vittimizzazione delle stesse sarebbe inoltre influenzata dalla presenza di una precedente (violenta) relazione, mentre la gravità e la durata della campagna persecutoria dipenderebbero dall’esistenza di un precedente legame romantico tra autore e vittima. Sulla base, quindi, delle precedenti osservazioni, lo stalking può essere considerato una forma di violenza (domestica) contro le donne.Anche se i paradigmi della violenza domestica hanno contribuito in maniera efficace all’aumento dell’attenzione verso i fenomeni persecutori, tuttavia è importante non dimenticare che lo stalking è un fenomeno eterogeneo, che coinvolge sia maschi che femmine, (ex)partner e non. Una normativa che esplicitamente (ad esempio, riservando gli ordini di protezione alle vittime di uno stalker ex-partner) o involontariamente (per esempio, utilizzando il requisito della paura o includendo le  tattiche di stalking legate al genere) esclude alcuni autori o vittime, come avviene in alcuni gli Stati membri dell’UE e – secondo il concetto di ‘valutazione di genere’ – nel caso della Convenzione del Consiglio d’Europa per combattere la violenza contro le donne e la violenza domestica, andrebbe evitata