1. Member States shall adopt and implement state-wide effective, comprehensive and coordinated policies encompassing all relevant measures to prevent and combat all forms of violence against women and domestic violence.
2. Member States shall designate or establish one or more official bodies responsible for coordinating, implementing, monitoring and evaluating policies and measures to prevent and combat all forms of violence covered by this Directive.
3. The body or bodies referred to in paragraph 2 shall coordinate the collection of data referred to in Article 44 and analyse and disseminate the results of such collections.
4. Member States shall ensure that policies are coordinated at the central level as well as, where appropriate, at the regional or local level, in accordance with the distribution of competences in the Member State concerned.
National action plans for preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence
1. By 14 June 2029, Member States shall adopt, in consultation with specialist support services, where relevant, national action plans for preventing and combating gender-based violence.
2. The national action plans referred to in paragraph 1 may include priorities and actions for preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, their objectives and monitoring mechanisms, the resources necessary to achieve such priorities and actions and how those resources are to be allocated.
3. Member States shall ensure that the national action plans referred to in paragraph 1 are reviewed and updated to ensure that they remain relevant.
1. Member States shall put in place appropriate mechanisms, with due regard to national law or practice, to ensure the effective coordination of and effective cooperation among relevant authorities, agencies and bodies, including ombudsmen, local and regional authorities, law enforcement, the judicial authorities, without prejudice to judicial independence, support services, in particular women’s specialist support services, as well as non-governmental organisations, social services, including child protection or welfare authorities, education and healthcare providers, the social partners, without prejudice to their autonomy, and other relevant organisations and entities, in protecting victims from violence against women and domestic violence and in supporting them.
2. Mechanisms of coordination and cooperation as referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall, in particular, pertain, in so far as relevant, to the individual assessments under Articles 16 and 17, the provision of protection and support measures under Article 19 and Chapter 4, the guidelines of an advisory nature under Article 21, and the training activities for professionals referred to in Article 36.
Member States shall cooperate with and hold regular consultations with civil society organisations, including non-governmental organisations working with victims, in particular concerning: the provision of adequate support to victims; policymaking initiatives; information and awareness-raising campaigns; research and education programmes; training; and the monitoring and evaluation of the impact of measures to support and protect victims.
Cooperation between intermediary service providers
Member States shall encourage self-regulatory cooperation between relevant intermediary service providers, such as the establishment of codes of conduct.
Member States shall raise awareness of self-regulatory measures adopted by relevant intermediary service providers in connection with this Directive, in particular measures to reinforce mechanisms implemented by such intermediary service providers to address online material referred to in Article 23(1) and to improve the employee training as regards preventing the offences referred to in this Directive on assisting and supporting victims of the offences provided for in this Directive.
Member States shall take appropriate action to facilitate cooperation between each other and at Union level to improve the implementation of this Directive. As part of such cooperation, Member States shall aim at least to:
(a)
exchange best practices with each other through established networks working on matters relevant to violence against women and domestic violence, as well as with Union agencies, within their respective mandates; and
(b)
where necessary, consult each other in individual cases, including through Eurojust and the European Judicial Network in criminal matters, within their respective mandates.
1. Member States shall have a system in place for the collection, development, production and dissemination of statistics on violence against women or domestic violence.
2. The statistics referred to in paragraph 1 shall, as a minimum, include the following existing data, available at a central level, disaggregated by sex, age group (child/adult) of the victim and of the offender and, where possible and relevant, relationship between the victim and the offender and type of offence:
(a)
the annual number of reported offences and of convictions of violence against women or domestic violence, obtained from national administrative sources;
(b)
the number of victims who have been killed due to violence against women or domestic violence;
(c)
the number and capacity of shelters per Member State; and
(d)
the number of calls to national helplines.
3. Member States shall endeavour to conduct population-based surveys at regular intervals to assess the prevalence of, and trends in, all forms of violence covered by this Directive.
Member States shall transmit data resulting from surveys as referred to in the first subparagraph to the Commission (Eurostat) as soon as they become available.
4. In order to ensure the comparability and standardisation of administrative data across the Union, Member States shall endeavour to collect administrative data on the basis of common disaggregations developed in cooperation with and in accordance with the standards developed by the European Institute for Gender Equality pursuant to paragraph 5. They shall transmit those data to the European Institute for Gender Equality on a yearly basis. The transmitted data shall not contain personal data.
5. The European Institute for Gender Equality shall support Member States in the data-gathering referred to in paragraph 2, including by establishing common standards taking into account the requirements set out in that paragraph.
6. The Member States shall make the statistics collected pursuant to this Article available to the public in an easily accessible manner. Those statistics shall not contain personal data.
7. Until at least the end of the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework, the Commission shall support or conduct research on root causes, effects, incidences and conviction rates of the forms of violence covered by this Directive.
