The Commission proposed new legislation on combating violence against women and domestic violence was adopted on 7 May 2024 (Directive (EU) 2024/1385). The EU now has the first ever law to effectively fight violence against women and domestic violence. The Directive criminalises at EU level certain forms of violence against women offline and online, and requires Member States to put in place robust measures of prevention, measures to enhance protection and support of victims, measures to facilitate their access to justice, and measures of coordination and cooperation between authorities.

Press Release, 6 February 2024. The Commission welcomes the political agreement reached today between the European Parliament and the Council on the Commission's proposal for a Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence from March 2022. The Directive is a milestone - the first comprehensive legal instrument at EU level to tackle violence against women, which is still too pervasive in the European Union. It follows the commitment taken by President von der Leyen in her Political Guidelines to do everything possible to prevent violence against women, including domestic violence, to protect victims and punish offenders.

The Directive criminalises physical violence, as well as psychological, economic and sexual violence against women across the EU, both offline and online.

Cyber bullying and cyber violence are an increasing problem for children and adults alike. The DSA introduced stronger protections for people targeted by online harassment and bullying. This includes making sure any non-consensual private images and other abusive, illegal content that are shared can be quickly flagged by users.

Just last year, we adopted the first ever EU law addressing this issue – the Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence. This Directive lays out comprehensive measures to protect, support, and provide access to justice for victims of violence, no matter where they live or travel in the EU. It also tackles cyber-violence, making the most common forms of cyber-violence a crime in every Member State.

The increasing reach of the internet, the rapid spread of mobile information, and the widespread use of social media, has led to the emergence of cyber violence against women and girls (VAWG) as a growing global problem with potentially significant economic and societal consequences.

Violence can take many forms that are not limited to physically hurting someone. Psychological violence can be just as harmful. It can take the form of, for example, coercion, defamation, verbal insults or harassment and it can happen offline or online. The increasing reach of the internet, the rapid spread of mobile communication technologies, and the use of social media, have led to the emergence of cyberviolence against women and girls as a growing global problem.

Gender-based and domestic violence remain common in Europe, especially affecting women and girls. The EU has adopted rules to put an end to it.

Cyber violence against women is a new and fast-paced dimension of inequality for women and girls, which pushes women out of the (digital) public sphere, disempowers them to express their opinion, and violates their human rights. Despite the prevalence of the phenomenon, CVAWG remains under-reported in the EU and there is a significant lack of comprehensive and comparable data.

The emergence of digital technologies has had far-reaching impacts on women’s and girls’ exposure to gender-based violence. Firstly, in providing abusers with access to more varied and powerful tools of control and coercion over the women in their lives, digital technologies can aggravate traditional forms of intimate partner violence (EIGE, 2017b). Secondly, digital technologies have enabled the emergence of new forms of gender-based violence, which are likely to affect women differently depending on their personal characteristics.