Activities of Annika BRUNA related to 2019/2166(INI)
Plenary speeches (1)
The impact of intimate partner violence and custody rights on women and children (debate)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on the impact of intimate partner violence and custody rights on women and children
Amendments (29)
Amendment 4 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 3
Citation 3
— having regard to the purposes set out in Article 1 of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention), which entered into force on 1 August 2014,
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 22
Citation 22
— having regard to the statement of 24 March 2020 by the President of the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO), Marceline Naudi, entitled ‘For many women and children, the home is not a safe place’, on the need to uphold the standards of the Istanbul Convention in times of a pandemic, , in times of a pandemic, to comply in particular with Articles 16 on prevention and treatment programmes, 20 to 22 on support for victims, 23 on shelters and 31 on visitation rights and safety, of the Convention,
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas gender equality between women and men is a fundamental value and an objective of the EU underlined in Articles 2 and 3 TFEU; whereas gender-based violence is an extreme form of discrimination against women and one of the biggest obstacles to achieving gender equalitythis objective;
Amendment 83 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas children may suffer ‘witnessed violence’ when they witness acts of violence in the family environment, through experiencing any form of ill- treatment, carried out through acts of physical, verbal, psychological, sexual and economic violence against reference figures or other affectively significant figures; whereas such violence has very serious consequences for the psychological and emotional development of the child, and whereas it is therefore essential to pay due attention to this type of violence in separations and parental custody arrangements, taking the best interests of the child into account, in particular in order to determine custody and visitation rights in separation cases;
Amendment 89 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E a (new)
Recital E a (new)
Ea. whereas, in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, court officials in all countries have been advised to stay at home and hearings have, in many cases, been postponed; whereas staff reductions in the courts are likely to cause delays in issuing restraining orders, in separation and divorce proceedings and in child custody hearings, including separation and divorce hearings, which women victims of intimate partner violence rely on in order to make it easier for them to distance or estrange themselves from their violent partners;
Amendment 99 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F a (new)
Recital F a (new)
Fa. whereas witnessed violence is not always easily recognisable, especially in the case of young children, and it is essential that operators who are called upon to decide on the right measures to protect and care for the children know how to interpret the situation and the actions of the mother, whilst being aware that the perpetrator and victim of violence are not equally responsible, in order not to make hasty diagnostic and prognostic judgements that do not take account of post-traumatic symptomatology, while facilitating an assessment in a protective and caring setting;
Amendment 107 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G a (new)
Recital G a (new)
Ga. whereas in situations of marital or relationship breakdown, allegations of interpersonal violence should be addressed before custody and visitation issues can be addressed; whereas in order to assess allegations of interpersonal violence in custody cases, the professionals involved must have specialist knowledge;
Amendment 112 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
H. whereas the right of every child to maintain contact with both parents, implied in Article 8 of the ECHR and Article 9 of the CRC, may be restricadapted byin the best interests of the child;
Amendment 131 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K
Recital K
K. whereas the Istanbul Convention requires the Parties to adopt legislative or otherlegislative measures are necessary measures to ensure that incidents of domestic violence are taken into account when determining custody and visitation rights in relation to children, and that the exercise of any visitation or custody rights does not jeopardise the rights and safety of the victim or their children;
Amendment 147 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital N a (new)
Recital N a (new)
Na. whereas children who are victims of or witnesses to intimate partner violence have more health problems (stunting, allergies, ENT and dermatological problems, headaches, stomach aches, sleeping and eating disorders, etc.), adjustment disorders (school phobia, hyperactivity, irritability, learning difficulties) and problems with concentration and behaviour;
Amendment 148 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital N b (new)
Recital N b (new)
Nb. whereas various studies show, on the one hand, that children who have lived in a violent family environment are heavily overrepresented among offenders and, on the other hand, that transgenerational repetition of violence is frequently observed;
Amendment 218 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Stresses the need for appropriate legal assistance for victims in terms of legal advice and representation by a lawyer before the court; emphasises, in addition, the need for prior preparation of victims for criminal proceedings, including through a system of psychosocial support - particularly during and after questioning procedures - which takes into account the emotional tensions associated with the circumstances, and designed to prevent risk factors which could lead to further violent offences;
Amendment 222 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 b (new)
Paragraph 4 b (new)
4b. Recommends that national authorities take action, in particular, to draft and disseminate a set of guidelines for professionals involved in cases relating to intimate partner violence and custody rights, including consideration of risk factors (risk factors relating to children or family members, environmental or social concerns, or potential repetition of violent offences), to enable the intimate partner violence to be assessed, in support of children's and women's rights;
Amendment 237 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Notes that such guidelines and guidance should be geared, inter alia, towards the management and storage of medical files and evidentiary items by the forensic expert and medical professionals, as appropriate, but in any case such as to enable women to take subsequent legal action and to enable the judicial authority to carry out specific investigations;
Amendment 253 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Suggests that such guidelines and guidance should include measures to promote safe, respectful and non-guilt- inducing out-patient and in-patient treatment programmes for women who have suffered violence, including intimate partner violence, and to support research to develop and evaluate the best treatments for women who have suffered violence, and for their children;
Amendment 263 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Expresses its concern about the fact that discriminatory gender bias often leads to a lack of trust indifficulties faced by women, in particular concalernting presumed false allegations ofthe authorities, without risk, to child abuse and ofor domestic violence;
Amendment 269 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8a. Notes that such guidelines and guidance should support health professionals in raising public awareness in their professional environment of the crucial impact of violence against women, including intimate partner violence, on their mental health;
Amendment 280 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 a (new)
Paragraph 9 a (new)
9a. Notes that, for clinical and legal purposes, the specific skills of the forensic expert make him or her the most suitable professional for the protection of women who are victims of violence, and children, also to assist specialists (paediatricians, gynaecologists, psychologists) in their work, having the appropriate training and technical expertise to be able to recognise the signs of violence and, where there are grounds to do so, to comply with reporting obligations and liaise with judicial and health authorities;
Amendment 292 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 a (new)
Paragraph 10 a (new)
10a. Stresses the importance for the forensic expert, or any other professional involved, to provide the relevant national authority with information relating to violence within the couple, when he or she believes that such violence puts the life of the adult victim or child in immediate danger and that the victim is unable to protect him/herself because of the moral or economic coercion resulting from the hold exercised by the perpetrator, seeking to obtain the adult victim's consent where appropriate;
Amendment 298 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 a (new)
Paragraph 10 a (new)
10a. Strongly recommends that Member States put in place systematic procedures for monitoring, including psychological monitoring, of children who are victims of and witnesses to domestic violence, in order to respond to the troubles this causes in their lives and to prevent them from repeating such violence as adults;
Amendment 305 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 b (new)
Paragraph 10 b (new)
10b. Stresses the need to eliminate any economic barriers that might induce a woman not to report the violence she has suffered; notes that this could be done by giving courts the option of awarding government benefits to support the victims, once the circumstances of the domestic violence have been established;
Amendment 318 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Calls on the Commission to promote EU-wide public awareness campaigns and exchange of good practice as a necessary measure in the prevention of domestic violence and the creation of a climate of zero tolerance towards violence;
Amendment 325 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11a. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to allocate more funds to national territorial authorities, including through projects and calls for funding, for the establishment and expansion of shelters, in order to increase, improve and ensure adequate reception and protection services for women who are victims of domestic violence and any children involved;
Amendment 342 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Emphasises that hearing from the child is important to establish what is in the best interests of the child while examining custody and foster care cases; points out nevertheless that in every case, but crucially in cases where intimate partnership violence is suspected, such hearings should be conducted in a child- friendly environment, with no pressure or influence from parents or relatives, by trained professionals, including those qualified in child neuropsychiatry, to avoid deepening the trauma and victimisation;
Amendment 353 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)
Paragraph 13 a (new)
13a. Calls on the Member States to provide effective instruments for the judicial accompaniment of children and to ensure that the operators in charge are adequately trained;
Amendment 363 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 a (new)
Paragraph 14 a (new)
14a. Calls on the competent authorities of the Member States to promote, in the best interests of the child and the female victim, a procedure whereby, with the intervention of accredited professionals, an assessment of the child's psychological state can be carried out at every stage of the procedure, in order to decide whether a meeting with the allegedly or declaredly violent parent is appropriate;
Amendment 366 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 b (new)
Paragraph 14 b (new)
14b. Calls on the competent national authorities to improve coordination between courts by fostering contacts between prosecutors' offices to enable issues of parental responsibility to be resolved urgently and to ensure that family courts are able to consider all issues relating to violence against women when determining custody and visitation rights and to assess whether such violence justifies a limitation of custody and visitation rights;
Amendment 367 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 c (new)
Paragraph 14 c (new)
14c. Encourages Member States, especially in view of the current situation in which there are still frequent periods of quarantine owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, to increase the number of violence prevention and response hotlines and invest in shelters and family centres and other appropriate measures, providing women who are victims of violence and are isolated, with confidentiality and a safe and local environment;
Amendment 369 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 d (new)
Paragraph 14 d (new)
14d. Calls on Member States to explore virtual options for helping victims of violence, including mental health and counselling options, paying attention to existing inequalities in access to information technology services;