The case of Marie Trintignant, beaten to death by her boyfriend, the French musician Bertrand Cantat, would not have attracted anything like the same mass media coverage if she had not been the daughter of the famous actor, Jean-Louis Trintignant, or if her boyfriend had not been so well-known in his own right. This tragic event has forced the mass media to train its spotlight on the world’s most terrible crime: conjugal violence.

This issue affects thousands of women and children around the world who suffer a daily diet of humiliation or even deadly violence of the kind dished out by Cantat. According to the UN, conjugal violence causes more deaths among women than cancer.

In any event, one woman in five within the European Union has already experienced conjugal violence. It should also be noted that the focal point for 95% of violence generally is within the family. Sadly, violence against women and children is a very widespread phenomenon in all societies regardless of setting, age or social standing. In some quarters, the problem is underestimated or viewed as a personal problem that is not a matter for the legal system, despite the existence of numerous statistics.

In recent years, the increase in migrant flows has seen at least 500,000 women and children fall victim to a new form of activity and violence: the trade in economic and sexual exploitation -- or “trafficking” as it is known. Trafficking constitutes the denial of a person’s basic human rights, a denial of freedom and, finally, a denial of everything that allows a person to live in dignity.

Violence against women stems from an uneven sharing of power between the sexes and the non-recognition and exclusion of women from education, culture, the arts as well as political and economic life until roughly the beginning of the twentieth century.

Men are associated with strength, authority, toughness, the rejection of emotion and the veneration of violence (“a damn good thrashing”).

Modern-day psychological studies of violence in relations between the sexes have difficulty answering the following paradox: despite the fact that women have, since the dawning of time, suffered discrimination and continue to face disadvantageous conditions today, men are the ones who, driven by feelings of injustice, develop violent behaviour.

In order to comprehend this paradox, allowance must be made for the imbalance in respect of the roles and social expectations that differ so markedly between boys and girls from the day they are born. Even the etymology of certain words associates men with violence.

In ancient Greek, the word “andria” (man) also means courage. Similarly, Latin contains the word “vir”, which provides the source in various languages for words whose root refers to humanity, courage and virtue.

Within the framework of patriarchal culture, a man’s honour is linked to his ability to use violence as a means of resolving national, social, family or personal differences. In many countries, crimes “of honour” are still a recognised modern-day issue.

This is why many governments have been obliged to promote campaigns aimed at preventing, treating and altering violent behaviour. In Austria, for example, if a violent incident occurs within a family, the law stipulates that the man, and not the female victim, must leave the family home. Victim support is no longer the sole focus of judicial concern.

Combating violence against women and children is one of the priorities of the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights, which is working hard to make this a priority for the European Union as well.

A great deal of attention is being concentrated on heightening public awareness and minimising tolerance of violence in any shape or form. The most recent stage in these efforts has been the well-received European “DAPHNE” programme, which provides funding for non-governmental organisations, public bodies and residential shelters.

Within the European Parliament, we have supported this programme’s continuation until 2008, increased its budget and, finally, called for members of the Convention on the future of Europe to include a firm legal basis within the European Treaty for the fight against violence.

Greece, too, faces its share of conjugal violence and activities involving the organised international white slave trade and trafficking networks. Hence the necessity there, over and above the laudable initiatives taken by the General Secretariat for Equality, the church and women’s organisations, to publish presidential decrees for the application, with immediate effect, of legislation in force and to promote carefully targeted measures.

Such action might enable the setting-up, and administration under government control, of the “European Observatory-Prevention Centre, Fight against Violence and Victim Support”, as indicated in the proposal that won initial acceptance when submitted by me to the ministers concerned.                            

• Anna KARAMANOU is Chair of the EP Committee on Women’s Rights and a MEP representing PASOK