Expert meeting related to the EU level campaign on prevention of violence against women

8th-10th November, Jyväskylä

Organisers: National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES), Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of the Interior.
By invitation only.

About a hundred experts from EU Member States will convene in Jyväskylä, Finland, on 8 - 10 November to discuss violence against women and means to prevent it. The European Parliament will be represented at the meeting by Ms. Maj-Britt Theorin who is also the Chair person of the Committee on Women´s Rights and Equal Opportunities. The Commission will also be represented at the meeting. Ms Eva Biaudet, the Finnish Minister of Health and Social Services, will open the meeting and chair it on Tuesday morning.

Journalists are welcome to listen to the plenaries; the meetings of the workshops are closed. The official language of the meeting is English.

The meeting aims to find good practices for the prevention of violence against women, as well as care practices to help women and men caught in a circle of violence. The purpose is, among other things, to draw up standards for shelters for battered women, and to develop models of treatment for men. Doctor Arnon Bentovim will in his introductory address approach the subject from the point of view children; the theme of his address is the corrupt effect of violence within a family on children.

A theme of discussion that is interesting from the legal point of view is the position of the police and the prosecutor as regards violence against women. In many countries the legislation would enable a more efficient interference, but the police and the judiciary system do not in all cases interfere in violence within a family as effectively as in other violent offences. Issues to be discussed in this context also include procedures concerning restraining orders, for instance when a restraining order is imposed and how its observance is supervised.

Prostitution and trafficking in women are also violence against women, and the research workshop of the meeting will deal with issues related to them. All workshops will give their recommendations for action at the concluding session of the meeting.

The meeting to be arranged in Jyväskylä is the third EU meeting on this theme. The earlier ones have been held in Vienna in 1998 and in Cologne in March this year. The theme will also be on the agenda of the next Presidency country, Portugal. The meeting to be arranged in Portugal next March will discuss, in particular, policies to prevent violence against women.

Press releases

Additional information:

Project manager Leena Ruusuvuori, STAKES, tel. +358 9 3967 2122, fax +358 9 3967 2201, mobile phone +358 50 350 7616, leena.ruusuvuori@stakes.fi

Information officer Tarja Tamminen (press enquiries), Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, tel. +358 9 160 3893, fax +358 9 160 4328, mobile phone +358 50 307 0256, tarja.tamminen@stm.vn.fi

Project for the Prevention of Violence against women 1998-2002 (in Finland)