Dozens of NGOs sent an open letter on Monday to Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, Minister of Justice Alina Gorghiu, and Minister of Family and Equal Opportunities Natalia Intotero, urging the acceleration of measures to prevent and combat violence against women and domestic violence..
The associations remind that these measures are already outlined in Directive (EU) 1385/2024, which aims ‘to provide a comprehensive framework for the effective prevention and combat of violence against women and domestic violence at the Union level.’.
The directive reinforces existing measures and introduces provisions related to the following areas: ‘defining offenses and relevant penalties, protecting victims and access to justice, supporting victims, improving data collection, prevention, coordination, and cooperation.’.
In the first six months of 2024, there were 648 reported cases of rape and 1,983 cases of child rape filed with the police.’These figures do not include the hundreds of cases of sexual assault, sexual corruption of minors, recruitment of minors for sexual purposes, and sexual harassment,’ according to a message posted by the Filia Center on its Facebook page.
Petition for Victims’ Protection
The Network for the Prevention and Combat of Violence Against Women (VIF) has launched a petition requesting the government ‘to ensure the rights and safety of women.’.
The member associations demand:
‘By signing this petition, we urge the Romanian government to take firm and immediate action to protect women and girls from violence and to uphold commitments made within the European Union,’ the associations stated.
The petition launched on Monday aims to gather 3,000 signatures.By the time this article was published, 535 people had signed it.