 Right, thanks. Hello and welcome, everyone. I'm Adrienne Ferguson, Director of Communications here at the IIEA. So it's great to have you all here, both in person and online on International Women's Day. And we're excited to host an important event on the subject, a European approach to combating violence against women and domestic violence, with a truly brilliant panel of experts. We're delighted to do that, Liz Carolyn, who is an expert in accountability in the tech world, and as an active member of the IIEA digital group, has agreed to chair today. And it's my pleasure to hand over to you now. Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. Happy International Women's Day. I hope everybody has already been to the polls or is going to the polls at some point today. We won't be explicitly kind of talking about the voting today, but I do think it's quite nice context from what we're going to be looking at, which is on this International Women's Day, the EU directive to combat violence against women and domestic violence. And so I'm absolutely thrilled that we have this panel here today of three women who are going to be talking us through this story behind the directive. We'll have some of the inside story. But also, where has it gotten us to? Has it gone far enough? And what tangible difference will it make to the lives of women and others here in Ireland and across Europe? I'm going to dive right in, and Frances, I'm going to ask you to speak first if that's okay. It's been two years to the day since this directive was proposed, and I understand that we're about a month away from it being finally voted on and passed. Would you be able to talk us through, I guess, how we got here? You're obviously the MEP for Dublin City and County, as well as been Vice President of the EPP group in the European Parliament. You're also a full member of the Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee, as well as the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee and a substitute member of the Development Committee. So I think, as well as being quite entirely involved in this, you're able to bring that much broader perspective for us and how this is kind of landing within the European Parliament. I know that you don't need much introduction, but yes, I'll just hand it over to you. And as Frances is getting ready, just a few notes. So this is being broadcast online, and it is being recorded. So what we're saying in our remarks and also in the Q&A, that will all be on the record, I hope you're aware of that. And I will be coming to people for questions towards the end. If you're here in the room, I'll be calling on you. And if you're listening in online, welcome and thank you. And please do submit some questions through the chat as well. Over to you, Frances. Thank you for the introduction and good afternoon everyone and happy International Women's Day as well as polling day. Let's hope you get a good turnout and the right result. Thanks again for the invitation to be here. It's very lovely to see Alex. We sold her together over a number of years and delighted to have an opportunity today to talk about this issue, pernicious and all as it is and persistent and all as it is. So maybe just to give a little bit of background, as you've asked Liz, great to be here with Rachel, of course, and Sarah, who really can talk about the practical implementation and the sort of unmet challenges that we still have. I think it is, you know, one of the most important staging posts for our battle for equality actually, whether it's, you know, online or at home or in the home. We've heard a lot about the home during this, these referendum campaigns and really we know home can be a very dangerous place. And that is sadly continues to be true. And of course, it inhibits women everywhere from achieving their potential from reaching equality. And we know the cost of not having equality is extremely high. It's high not just at a personal level, but it's high at an economic level. And we're seeing the kind of figures that are absolutely enormous that violence against women is costing the EU every single year. I've seen hundreds of billions being quoted from the Institute of EIGE, the Institute for Gender Equality that really does provide fantastic stats on this. So we know the personal cost is huge. It's death very often. We know that every 10 years a city the size of Zagreb, Amsterdam, Berset disappears from the face of the earth, with the 858,000 women who are murdered and femicide simply because they're women every 10 years. So the scale of it is incredible. I have to say I'm continued to be disappointed that it isn't higher up the policy priorities in every member state, in every country, because as I say, every stat that you quote is extraordinary. And people are I think still surprised that it can be, you know, one in six women facing sexual harassment, the high numbers of rape, etc. It's almost, it seems sometimes as if it's separate from our day-to-day existence and yet it's happening in parallel to so many people. And so we just have to grasp how very serious it is. I think Ireland has done very well in many ways. When I look at it from a European perspective, I see the progress that's been made in Ireland compared to some member states. For some member states there are even more implications for the directive than there are for Ireland, because some states have no legislation on cyber violence, some have no definitions of rape with consent. We do have that here. The importance of the consent issue, and I'll talk a bit more about that. So there's quite a, you know, and Europe is probably the most advanced place in the world in relation to this issue, and yet we still have huge variation in the member states. So you asked, you know, how did it come about? What's the view of it now? Really it's the efforts of many people over probably 30 years. I mean, it is surprising that this is the first time there's been a directive on violence at European level. It's the very first directive. And you kind of say, give them what we know about violence against women. How come? And again, it wasn't high up enough on the policy priorities. This has been a very good commission, I would say, for a good mandate for gender equality. We've had quite a few initiatives. We've had the pay transparency. We've had the women and boards directive. We've had the quality bodies. And now we have the directive. So I think Ursula van der Leyen has put it as a high priority. And it has been seen as such. And she came out with the proposal, by the way, this day, two years ago, the proposal was published. So it's taken two years of work. In April, we will have a vote on it in the plenary session. The committee endorsed it overwhelmingly. And then Ireland is three years to implement it. And within, I think it's another five years, there will be a review and that would be important. And I'll tell you why in a moment. So it's the efforts of many people, you know, no one section of society does this on their own. It's, you know, it's the work of the NGOs, the frontline people. It's the work of parliamentarians who care about it. Commissioners who are motivated. The victims who have the courage to speak out and their families. I think that's a very important part of change. We see that, whether it's referendums or anywhere else, we know it's about a multi-stakeholder approach that really will make a difference. And there's been a lot of consultation. We had huge contact from NGOs across Europe. And we came up with a parliament position. The parliament position was stronger than the commissions in many ways. So basically what we were doing was five key elements, setting the same minimum standards for crimes, safe reporting and risk assessment procedures, respect for victims' privacy and judicial proceedings, right to compensation, very tricky one, support for victims through helplines and crisis centres and better coordination and cooperation between member states and cross-border crimes. So, I mean, it is a historic deal and it focuses on protection, prevention and prosecution, very important pillars that we want to deal with. I can say a lot about the process. I mean, it was a no-flood work. I mean, honestly, it sometimes is a member of the European Parliament. I'm amazed at the amount of things we actually agree, because the process at times is so consultative. You have the commission, you have the parliament, and you have the council. And really, you've got to get agreement in all three, and you have to move it forward. And, you know, we came up against quite, you know, serious blocks with the council in relation to this, as you know. In relation to the commission, they presented, you know, they give the proposition, they present the first possibilities. And then the parliament, you're working with like, you know, members from 27 member states, we're working with, at a technical level, you're working with the staff of all of the different parties. So, you have a huge amount of technical work being done all of the time, like hours and hours and hours, tens of hours, between technical teams. And of course, the parliament's position was very progressive, I would say. And really, many of my colleagues wanted everything in it, and trying to manage that process was very difficult, because you knew the council wouldn't agree, you knew the commission at times might not agree. But you're all the time, I mean, the great strength of the European institutions and the European parliament is that you're working towards a consensus. You're working towards that, you're building consensus. But right to the last second, you know, everybody was trying to put more in. I'll give you some examples. And I mean, I was, obviously, it's a personal level to be totally open to that. But if the council, the member states, have already agreed a position, it can be very, very difficult to keep adding things. They've got to go back to 27 member states. So, you know, my admiration for the process, actually, has certainly been heightened by my experience of doing the directive. It's no mean feat to get to a directive in any area. Very difficult, very different, you know, attitudes, for example, to the obligations we should put in business. You see that in the European parliament to quote another area, you know, quite different views from the Nordics to Ireland to the other countries. But anyway, what we agreed here, you have to look at what the basis is and the treaties for this, and it was sexual exploitation. So you get down to a very technical point about what is sexual exploitation. Sounds very obvious when you say it, but when you actually begin to delve into it, you'd be surprised that the very strong legal advice we got from all sorts about what you can't include in it. What we did end up including in it was female genital mutilation, clearly exploitation, forced marriage, and then the non-consensual sharing of intimate or manipulated material, cyber stalking, cyber harassment, the unsolicited receipt of sexually explicit material, cyber incitement to violence or hatred. So that is what will come into effect for over 450 million citizens in the EU. And we didn't get the crime of raping to it. Most people when they hear that say, well, why isn't raping it? Surely rape is sexual exploitation. The reason for the exclusion vary. Concerns about the EU's overreach into criminal law is one area. The classic power balance sensitivities between the commission and the member states. I would say to political and cultural opposition from some conservative member states to such an overtly gendered piece of proposed legislation. The council took a position that was contrary to the commission and the parliament. And we just simply, no matter what we did at national and international level, we could not get the qualified majority. We're very disappointed that France and Germany did not support this. We needed them for the qualified majority. It would have been by qualified majority position. I think, as I say, there were some cultural attitudes to the consent issue, for example. You know, you begin to wonder what are the assumptions that some people are making about consent. And you sort of, the definition was very inclusive that we were proposing from the commission and from the parliament. Our legal advice was very strong. Council's advice was different. Now, the irony of not getting it into a directive and not to get too technical about it is that 22 member states have to implement the Istanbul Convention, where rape is defined as lack of consent. So 22 member states will have to implement that anyway, but they didn't agree to put it in the directive. So we can talk about that, but that is the situation. You get to the end of a campaign then and work and you look at what's in the directive and the question, I'll finish on this, the question had to be, well, you know, should we support it or should we say no? Is there enough in it to make it worthwhile? And the interesting thing is 95% of NGOs, lobbyists, everybody we were working with said, go ahead. You absolutely have to work on this, accepted. Take what you have already and build on it. And that's what we're recommending, and that's what we brought to committee. There was enough in it to say, it's important to go ahead. You have a directive with the points I've outlined and an awful lot on prevention. Some people would say, look, the offences, they are important. I don't mean to say they're not important, but the prevention work, the protection, the prosecution of which there is an awful lot in the directive and a lot of new initiatives in the directive. This is a starting point. As I said, we got to that place. This is in the end, this is yet another beginning and there is a lot of work to do. So we did get an overwhelming vote in the committee, the important committee that was dealing with it. That was a committee between the Women's Rights Committee and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. And so they said they voted overwhelmingly in favor of the trial agreement. And as I say, we'll have a final vote. So I'd conclude by saying, sadly, right across the European Union, we still have a very uneven, mixed and inadequate response to violence against women across Europe. Member States will now have a European directive to guide their work in this area. I think it will be central to the journey of change. It should mean that violence against women will receive a higher political and policy response from governments across Europe. So I hope I've given you a flavor of the directive and of the process of getting there over the last two years. Thanks very much indeed. Thanks, Frances, and thanks. I nearly felt like I was in the room there with some of those technical discussions and could smell the coffee. And I think to go from that insider insight into how, as you said, this directive was just going to impact 450 million people across Europe in the course of the next month or two. To Rachel, I'm going to come to you next if that's all right. So Rachel is the chief exec of the Dublin Rape Crisis Center, who, as I'm sure many of you know, run the amazing 24-hour helpline, which is staffed by a lot of those volunteers, Frances, that you mentioned. But the center, it also runs counseling, therapy services, and it provides a really valuable accompanying service to women as they're trying to navigate both the medical system and the justice system. So I think I'm really interested to hear from you about whether you're happy or disappointed with the directive. It's always a little bit of both. But I guess for the people who you and your team kind of serve, what does this mean? Thanks Liz. That was really interesting, Frances. It's always, you know, Frances always has such a good take on what's happening in Europe. And thanks to the IEA for inviting me here today, Alex, Dara, Sarah, Barry, and all the other colleagues here. I want to start by recognizing the enormous contribution that Frances and her colleagues made in Europe with this directive. Frances personally has obviously made great inroads just in the areas of justice, gender, and equality through her political life. And this is just one of her many legacies, this directive that we're here to talk about today. But it's somewhat ironic, I suppose, that there's four women here on International Women's Day discussing something that didn't go far enough, as it's often the case for women when it comes to making progress. We're told that compromising is the only way to move forward and longed for improvements need to be scaled back. And Frances really articulated the role of consensus and it's a very important way to get progress. But as a woman and reflecting on International Women's Day, I suppose what we hear sometimes is that we can have a few wins, but we can't actually have the prize of true gender equality. And the reality is that we're not going to achieve gender equality until we eliminate violence against women. And violence against women includes rape, of course it does. And while the inclusion of a consent-based definition in the directive was dangled tantalizingly close to women in Europe, it was snatched away because that's what the 24 men and three women, if you make up the council, had within their power to do. They used legal arguments, as Frances described, to cover their lack of political ambition on tackling sexual violence. And in doing so, we feel that they let the women of Europe down. Each of the three institutions, they developed their legal opinions with only the council expressing concerns, as Frances said, that included the criminalisation of non-consensual sex acts would overreach EU legal competencies. And Frances also explained that rape is not included in the list of Euro crimes listed in Article 83 of the treaty. There was differing opinion around that with the Commissioner for Equality saying that Europe already used the exact same language and legal basis to criminalise non-consensual sexual activities with children. So they stated that there was no legal argument against using it then. So the harmonisation of a consent-based definition of rape had been within touching distance and Frances and her colleagues were working so hard with NGOs across Europe and with political allies to try and get it included. And it would have given all women in the EU a consistent and equitable path to justice no matter what country they lived in. In Ireland, consent is defined in the Sexual Offences Act of 2017 as a person who freely and voluntarily agrees to engage in a sexual act. But other European countries have not gone as far and that means that in Europe it still matters where you live when it comes to attaining justice. But the directive, as Frances has said, was so much more than a piece of legislation that included a consent-based definition of rape and Sarah will cover some of this later. But when we heard, as Frances alluded, that the entire directive was at risk of collapsing because of attempts to derail it on the issue of rape, there was no other choice than to forgo the accelerated progress we believed to be possible and to settle and compromise for what could be agreed, that consensus that Frances described, and that's just as women throughout history have had to do. And that was a really bad thing in the office. But DRCC, we really wanted, we were part of that 95%, we really wanted the directive to pass even if it was in a compromised sense because there really are important provisions that will improve the lives of women and girls across the EU. And we were also really pleased that Frances and her team managed to include an article in the directive that recognises for the first time at EU level that rape is defined by lack of consent by referencing the importance of preventing rape and to address the issue of consent through including new mandatory awareness campaigns across the EU. Adopting the directive also means that there is the possibility to amend it, as Frances said, to include rape after the conclusion of the review period. And this is what we in Dublin Rape Crisis Centre will be doing alongside Frances and colleagues in the EU. So to sum it up, here we are on International Women's Day doing what women do best. We're putting on brave faces, picking ourselves up, telling each other that we'll get there. We're focusing on the positives and we're united in our determination that we will get there because that's what women do. But I want to finish up by being really clear. We now have a directive on combating violence against women that does not criminalise rape based on a consent-based definition. I believe that the consequences of this will be to deepen and widen inequalities that already exist across Europe and it illustrates that the barriers to progress that were intentionally put in the way by politicians were greater than the courage of some member states to overcome them. Including a consent-based definition of rape in the directive was important for both legal and symbolic reasons and its exclusion sends a clear signal to victims and survivors across Europe that it was not a political priority. The adoption of the directive could have marked a transformative moment in the EU's approach to combating violence against women and again we do recognise that this directive indicates much progress but we also recognise the missed opportunities that could have significantly strengthened protections for all women in lines of standards of the Istanbul Convention. So we remain virtually disappointed that rape was excluded and on International Women's Day stand with the women across Europe who live the consequences of compromising on equality every day of their lives. Our experience in DRCC over 45 years has taught us that progress towards gender equality and the full realisation of women's rights across the globe including in Europe is regrettably slow. I do want to underline my heartfelt and genuine thanks to Francis and the team who were unwavering in their commitment and tenacity to try and get this important provision included and it's because of her that we have something to work with to be able to try again and make the directive stronger and for that the women of Europe of gratitude and thanks. And speaking about the directive, the Taoiseach said that he believes incremental progress in incremental progress and that's true at least moving forwards isn't going backwards but that's a really hard pill to swallow when you're the one who's always told to push for change but not too much that the world isn't ready for gender equality just yet. Thank you. Thank you so much Rachel. I think you know really powerful analysis there and also just helping kind of ground us in the lived reality of so many people and that potential that was there and Sarah Benton I want to come to you last on the panel if that's alright and there's a lot to reflect on there I think from what both Francis and Rachel has said so you are obviously the CEO of Women's Aid a national organisation working to prevent and address the impact of domestic violence and before running Women's Aid you were the CEO of of Ruhama for nine years working with people affected by prostitution including victims of sex trafficking you're an Irish expert on the violence against women for the European Women's Lobby Observatory you were and you've also been chairperson of CAP International so I think extremely well placed to give us some reflections on all of this and I think I know that you were involved in this process through some of the kind of pan-European organisations that Women's Aid has been involved in and you know Francis referenced the 30 years of work that went into this regulation and I know that Women's Aid have been that centre of that so I'd love kind of your reflections on the process as well and yeah and if you see any opportunities in this thank you Thank you Well thank you and thank you for the invitation to be here today and it's actually it's always a privilege to share a platform with our colleagues in the Dublin Red Crisis Centre because we're very much mirror organisations in many ways DRCC have the National Sexual Violence Helpline we have the National Domestic Violence Helpline we both you know company victim survivors through different core processes we campaign together, we lobby together and we both have dedicated training organisations because both of our organisations are structured as social change organisations on the basis that providing services to those to whom harm has already been perpetrated is completely insufficient if you're not also working to change the structures and the systems and improve them and there is nothing at all that I would disagree with in what Rachel said so I would just take of that everything Rachel said take of that I would also have said the same thing my kind of role is maybe to kind of do some sort of reflections also look at where the possible opportunities might be here with this directive perhaps in the Irish context but also for our colleagues across Europe who are involved in similar battles for gender equality for specialist women's services for rights, for entitlements, for legal recognition but similarly to Rachel I definitely want to pause and just thank Frances for her absolute tenacity not just in her current role but also previously has an astonishingly strong track record as Minister for Children, as Minister for Justice in many different achievements but there are some real standards that mark a commitment to women's and children's safety and support through legal and public policy positions so I also had the great opportunity quite some years ago to do a study visit to Brussels which was specifically around trying to understand the Council, the Commission, the Parliament how they all work, how they interact together spent three full days trying to just understand the basics and like if you were to try and quiz me on it there's absolutely no chance to even just that dizzying staggering technical process to have navigated it and to have managed to try and bring this directive to completion and I know some of your colleagues particularly some of your Swedish colleagues again just fought so hard and so just to commend you on the success because I think we have to look at anything even if it's incremental and as Rachel said it always seems so incremental but this is how it goes and the pragmatist in me gets disappointed and then sucks it up and then accepts it and moves on and we are members in women's aid of the Women Against Violence Europe the Wave Network and this is a pan-European network based in Vienna but pan-European network of frontline domestic and sexual violence services and it could not be more clear to me every time I meet my colleagues which I do a number of times a year just how much harder and how much more challenging it is for some of our colleagues in other countries and just today being International Women's Day a dear friend and colleague who is working in an organisation called Rosa in Hungary reached out just to say Happy International Women's Day and I said tell me and it goes something good that's happening and she said I can't there is nothing nothing good that's happening for women in terms of combating violence against women and the last time I saw her we were reflecting on the the dynamics in Europe with different governments and it's really quite challenging when somebody who has devoted their life to combating violence against women and children says well perhaps the change of government in Poland will have a positive effect with us simply on the basis of alliances but that's a stretch so the stakes are very high for women and children everywhere all victims of domestic and sexual violence I should say our work is particularly on women and children in terms of anything that will be that rising tide to lift all boats and a directive such as this is only ever a baseline the same as with Istanbul these are baselines this is not the ceiling to which Member States must aspire this is a baseline that we work from and similarly when we heard the news that it didn't look like firstly rape had been accepted and then there was the question as would it go ahead we did a lot of soul searching in a short period of time and did look at what our colleagues in the WAVE network were saying what our colleagues in the European women's lobby were saying and realised we have to actually look for what is going to be beneficial in this and set this one aside dust ourselves off and throw our weight behind it and it's a little interesting I'm going to get too reflective on what's going on today but we have been involved in a process of reflection over these last weeks around a different proposition a protest no which is always for the starters quote you really have to look at what are the consequences and as in that case as in this case it was like no it is better to push forward and build on that and this adds to the kind of the other suite of tools which we rely on both within Europe so you know we have the Istanbul Convention which I mentioned we have the human traffic interactive convention and then you know at the human level we have CEDAW we have the ILO Convention on sexual harassment all of these things are part of our toolkit and then we must be ingenious and clever and crucially work together and collaboratively to look at where the gains and the opportunities are so that's where we're at with this directive now and one of the things that we were very interested in was because cyber violence and cyber harassment is so prominent in this we're like well what else is going on in what we want and Ireland is in a very interesting position because our commissure in the man which is just established and you know has been building up its team in order to look at our civil legislation the online safety directive sorry built as online safety media regulations I think that's correct which is the civil piece of legislation but does require that they will put a code a series of codes of practice for the actual service providers the online platforms and they have published a draft which is for video sharing platforms and we were very unhappy with it because it very much focuses on children which of course is important but it really doesn't deal with issues which are criminal offenses in Ireland including image based sexual abuse the sharing of intimate images and other forms of online abuse and one of the things that we find very difficult from our front line work with those who have been subjected to this egregious form of abuse which can have devastating consequences up to and including suicide ideation including removal from workplace from college extraordinary levels of anxiety depression you know it is something that one click of a button can cause such absolute pain and it can just fracture somebody's life into pieces and so we are very upset that you know pursuing a criminal charge and our legislation is quite good the harmful harassment and harmful communications act is good on this but as we know pursuing a criminal case takes so so long and what we hear is this thing is online it's on fire it's all over the internet get it down get it down get it down and we had really hoped that the civil legislation would do more to help that side of things as it currently stands that's not going to be the case with this iteration what I will acknowledge very much is that commission man have been very open and we've met them a number of times and they know our concerns and they hear them but when we saw this directive we went aha do we have something here that we can use because this will now require all member states to actually enact legislation on this and what's unique about Ireland in its reach and its power here is we have legislation commission man actually is not just regulating for Ireland it is actually technically regulating for most of Europe in nearly every instance when you talk about the video sharing platforms because nearly all of them have their actual commercial base in Ireland so regulating here is regulating for Europe so this is something that we're very interested in and we were quick to actually flag to them this hasn't been passed by Parliament but here is the wording and there are certain things where it looks like if criminal proceedings have been initiated there will be obligations that will fall on making sure that the member state makes sure that there's mechanisms to take things down so these are the nuggets we're taking and the other one then is we have a harmful harassment and harmful communications act and that itself is going to be reviewed next year there are certain components of this directive which we think will allow us to argue additional forms of protection for things such as doxing it's not referred to as doxing in the directive but that doesn't really exist in that piece of legislation so as I say where is the opportunities to actually build on that and then recognizing that this has been welcomed by the European women's lobby with qualifications it has been welcomed by our colleagues in the WAVE network again with qualifications but this is what we must always do we must be dynamic we must take the opportunities and we must look for where this is going to add to our work which is in service of those who have been hurt, who have been harmed but also those who have been risked of harm and hurt and anything that adds to that toolkit has to be welcomed so I'll stop there that's okay Thanks Sarah I think just imagining your colleagues sitting in Hungary right now on International Women's Day it's a nice bit of perspective for us as well as some of those opportunities that might be contained within even if we do have some of those disappointments I want to give you a chance to respond because there's a lot being there's a lot being said there is there anything that comes to mind? They're very thoughtful commentaries and I could sit here and get a bit more depressed than I am about the whole geopolitical situation in Europe not to mind equality as well and the unfinished work we have to do but I suppose a couple of things first of all let me say you want to say where did the resistance come from let's be very clear it did not come from the commission it did not come from the parliament it came from the representatives of the prime ministers of Europe so what it has taught me and what it didn't know is how much work we have still to do on equality across Europe if you have this sort of a job to do to get rape included in a directive like this my goodness I mean that is extraordinary I think myself whatever the concerns about overreach by the EU it is shocking that they were not able to come up with a wording that they could live with even if it was not even if it was a more concise shall we say description of the offence that maybe the commission had come up with you could have said the commission had a slight overreach some people would say that I wouldn't say it because I think we should go absolutely as far as we can in relation to this in legislation but it was the council rejected this and as I said I won't go back over the variety of reasons that were given but there was a failure by the council to support the inclusion of rape whoever you look at it second point again we have so much work to do at a member state level and the variation is huge I mean I had a colleague I think it was Slovenia it stood up from on the day we were making the decision amongst all of the shadow raptors will we go ahead or not and she said look we will have nothing else if we do not have this directive and that applies to quite a few member states there are things in this directive at least not just at least but is a very important beginning for member states in relation to the wide variety of issues that it covers so we have to keep that broad perspective in mind the other win and thank you for mentioning it was that we actually towards the very end and we did it we got in under prevention and of course prevention the legal competence is clear the EU can do preventative work we got a very important article in 36a on rape prevention and on an obligation on member states to deal with the consent issue and do you know mandatory they have to do much more work on consent than is being done as I say this big cultural resistance in some countries so that was very important to have that in and we also got this rape without consent is an offence in a EU legislation for the first time and so that was a very important win now it's in under the prevention section not under the offence as such but it's very important to have it in there and finally I would say there is a lot in this directive to work on that we haven't had before sometimes the focus on rape takes away from all that and I can understand why you know how people feel so strongly about it but you know we have things in this like I mean a big long list I'm not going to go through the list with you obviously but we've a lot about children we've a lot about awareness racing we have a whole lot about training for all of the people who come in contact with the women primarily women who suffer from violence we have a big win for parliament believe it or not why it's so hard to get this but it was data collection how important it is to get really high quality data collection throughout Europe we got that in disaggregated in a whole lot of different ways we got a lot about support and hearing the child victim we got a lot on role of specialist support services and national help lines how you document cyber violence you know lot of detail and all of that so it's going to be about a hundred pages it's really worth looking at it there's lots of places that will improve services even though we you know are quite advanced I think there's a lot in it as well specialised services to be consulted for undertaking an individual assessment ensuring that perpetrators can be barred from coming within a certain distance of the victim so electronic monitoring so I just want to get across there's a lot of detail in this that I think will be very positive as it gets implemented and of course we have to monitor the implementation of it as well thank you Francis and I do want to open up to questions from the floor so if anybody has any and I know there might be some coming in just as everyone's thinking of the question like how hopeful are you for that review because we're looking at so it's three plus five is it so it's kind of in eight years time are you feeling hopeful? Me? There's a lot of work to be done I mean the whole argument about overreach on criminal cases is quite difficult I'm very glad we've got the director for now I think the parliament is probably going to move more to the right I have no idea what the attitudes this is one of the reasons that people really wanted it to come in now because they were not sure what happened not to mind just on rape but on other issues what the attitudes might be so I mean I think we're going into a challenging time around authoritarianism I think democracy is under threat that doesn't bode well for equality it's a far more challenging time I think right now and coming up in Europe on equality I think backward movement in a number of member states so look a lot of work to do I mean who can predict some places are in a war economy at the moment you've got to keep that in mind I mean we condemn rape as a war crime and yet we can't get it into our own it's a lot of work but I mean there's great energy out there as well I mean there's fabulous work being done by so many of the women's groups and frontline services so you know I wouldn't be I'm not sure over optimistic about it at all I think a huge amount of work to be done because the variety of arguments against it are so varied yeah I totally agree with what Francis said about the the long road ahead and I think quite was so disparaging for us and others that we were so close to getting it into the directive like it really was within touching distance and as Francis described we don't really know what the political landscape is going to look like in Europe over the next 12 months and there is probably able to speak to this better than I can but there's actual resistance online to progress there's obviously the political architecture that may change but also online we see that people who have populist like in this manasphere that there are created incels who are actively blocking measures like this and getting a lot of support for them and I suppose that could leak out from online into in-person and I think that again just to agree with Francis that the fight will have to continue I think that the fight like around issues like rape will turn more sinister possibly and there will be people who are very against provisions like this and if the political landscape changes and I suppose it's supported at a grassroots level by people who are against progress like this I think that it's worth saying that just around the rape and sexual violence issue and Francis mentioned prevention there which is obviously hugely important the awful thing about sexual violence and domestic violence as well is that it is entirely preventable it is not like a disease like it's not infectious it is one human doing it to another human and once you know clear on that it makes it all the more horrifying that it's something that is so within the power of all of us to change and as society and politics does seem to be becoming more polarised and possibly more right wing that is a scary thing to consider and are we going to have the laws in place to be able to deal with that threat yeah really good comments and I think just that broader context of what's happening within Europe I think we've often in this country really looked to Europe to be selling the bar and it is quite worrying can I just say that this touching this issue we only had 13 member states that were supporting this so it was unanimous like in the parliament and commission more or less there's the council there's only 13 member states ever who were supporting it so there was that big number who were either on the fence or against so there was always a challenge in the council yeah there any questions coming in and anyone online you can add them in zoom as well thank you very much everyone my name is Barry Cald from the director of research here thank you so much for being here and thanks for your important work I have two quick questions one for Francis and one for Sarah just you're talking about the council there I'm just curious and you specifically mentioned France and Germany which which result in qualified majority falling short where they for similar reasons are different reasons just in the particular in the French and German cases and if I can ask you Sarah on the you mentioned my commission the man and the kind of outside responsibility Ireland has here given that we host so many of the big tech firms I think you depict the scale of the problem really well do you think commission the man appreciate the scale of the problem as well or is there still kind of an education required for them to understand the scale of the problem as you depict it I'll come to you first yeah thank you I suppose the first thing one has to ask is what are we defining as the problem and they we are talking about you know gender-based violence in the round we are talking about online abuse and things which are criminal offences and yes I would say that they do recognise that I think the challenge actually is a little bit kind of it's a bit of a paradox is that because they understand the problem and because they are looking at it as to the scale at a pan-European level that has created a hesitancy to go too far because it's like well if we if we introduce a complaints mechanism do we have to take complaints from France and Germany and so I think there's a caution around that I will say I mean I have met the commissioner and I think there's a real openness there and they are relying on a phased process they are scaling up they went from 10 staff to 100 you know so there's all those practical things and I think it's just that we take a different perspective on what the approach might be we had hoped that the first of these codes would be setting a standard and taking a very clear approach to a strong and robust code whereas I think perhaps and I don't wish at all especially because I'm aware this is on the record to speak for the commission is that perhaps a different approach has been taken of well this will be our first one let's get this over the line and then build up I tend usually to come from the perspective as hard as you can get as much as you can because after that everyone will be chipping away so I think that that perhaps is the you know but there is a huge you know economic you know I mean there's broader things at play here these are businesses that you know you know have thousands and thousands of people and you know are part of the economy therefore part of the kind of the discourse here as well and they are pushing like I mean two of them have there's a judicial review for two of them where they refuse to even be defined as video sharing platforms the resistance is huge huge which I think means we have to accept that these are not willing partners in online safety for children for adults for anybody they're just not their commercial interests and they are not interested in going the extra mile so they will have to be made to do it and before I come back to Tobari's first question there's a related question just in terms of the combating the possible use of AI to generate some of these sort of images online were you waiting for that question yeah well actually I was just going to spend after Rachel before if I may just in terms of that kind of broader reflection I think it's something Rachel said during her comments is that it's the correlation between gender inequality and violence and sexual domestic and sexual violence and in countries it's like a seesaw in the countries with less equality the world's of women and girls are smaller and the risk of danger is higher the two completely correlate and so in terms of optimism now I think it's we can't and we don't just look at taking action on specifically those areas of violence against women and others when you see and you see when you see MEPs objecting to what their representatives in the council are doing there is something else at play there and I think we have to remember that we have across the world and in Ireland and in Europe very high levels of gender inequity and inequality being two distinct things everywhere including political representation and you have structures and systems and ways of doing things which are have been closed to walking in the shoes of other people and you know sitting in the wheelchair of another person there is a huge amount of dismantling to do there so we have to really work at the equity and the equality and the representation in all areas including politically if we're going to get over there is that kind of magic number of 35% being that tipping point women on their own can be isolated and that doesn't mean they can't be champions it does make an awful lot harder but that kind of systemic sea change of perspectives and what matters I mean this is something that affects so many billions of people and yet to France's earlier point why is it so hard it costs a fortune if you want to take the economic view people are dying you know so I think the two have to be connected and AI is something that I really worry about you know it's very interesting it's very good for doing little I'm learning about how to use it for doing summaries and policy reports and things but on the other side when you take what's happening online I'm really really really worried there's another point as well about the tech industries and our whole technological evolution which I think is quite shocking and it doesn't get that much coverage actually I was at the CSW New York last year and the theme was about the tech industries and women and the future and the absolute conclusion from it which is quite shocking is that the gender inequalities that we all know about are being replicated in the tech industries because sometimes these industries seem so you know on point and so kind of glamorous and everyone's involved and it's you know et cetera et cetera and yet actually the reality is there's really serious issues about gender inequality in terms of technology women's access particularly in the global south but everywhere the research is still more male generated than female or you know the critical mass of either sex so that's a really important point that is of huge concern going forward so we've a lot of work to do in that area We're building artificial intelligence out of Reddit right out of like the it is reading the internet famously you know a bastion of gender equality and then turning that into intelligence it is in lots of ways We've got to be kind of you know cautious about that that is a real issue the other thing by the way is we need male champions Champions are so important and we do have some but we don't have enough we need more of the council by the way so you know because men are still predominantly the leaders in politics much and always we'd like to see that critical mass changing it's still certainly not in Ireland we don't have a critical mass in the door the European Parliament's about 39% and you feel the difference have to say 39% it's a very equitable sort of place in terms of the experience of being an MEP there and on the question you asked then France and Germany you know it's kind of interesting there's liberal ministers in both France and Germany which people might find surprising sometimes they say things about my own group the EPP that it's very conservative the EPP government supported it or didn't go against it kind of another important qualification and yeah France and Germany I think they use the legal but you know we often know that legal advice can be quite political as well and it can you know go in different directions as we saw during this directive France and Germany it was very much you know it's overreached by Europe but I think there's another more political element which is that if you want to appease the far right in your country particularly in France you might like to say well actually we're not going to be told what to do by Europe on this we're going to do our own law on consent and right and so on and they both countries have law on right but it was just they did not want to be told that you have a more elaborate definition they didn't want to be told now you know if I yeah I mean it's it's it's tricky I mean maybe if there was a I mean I'm just saying this here you know public obviously but maybe if there was a different definition from the beginning it might have had more chance of success but I'm not so sure I'm just not so sure because the resistance was like every pressure was brought to bear by all of you by the NGOs by the parliament we just couldn't get the shift on it sometimes if a legal opinion gets very entrenched at an early stage it can be very hard to change it as well and I think the member states got frightened at the beginning about it they just saw the definition as Europe trying to do too much on criminal justice and they pulled back and that's another interesting manifestation of what you were saying of this kind of literacy to the right it's not just people who are normally more progressive then you have a problem as well or if it kind of erodes Europe's ability to act collectively as well exactly we are just at time we are at time so I'm afraid we won't have time for any more questions but Francis Fitzgerald MP Sarah and Rachel Morrow thank you so much it has been such a fantastic discussion I have so many things to go away and find out about and get angry about and thank you everybody for coming out here on an already busy day for you guys and for everybody else this directive will be coming into force in the next month or two and I'm sure we'll be revisiting it the IEA will be revisiting it as we see the impact that it has so thank you everyone