Legal and policy framework on risk assessment and management of intimate partner violence in the European Union

AuthorEuropean Institute for Gender Equality (EU body or agency)
Pages13-18
1. Legal and policy framework on risk assessment and management of intimate partner violence in the European Union
13
Risk assessment and management of intimate partner violence in the EU
1. Legal and policy framework on risk
assessment and management of
intimate partner violence in the
European Union
(30) Directive 2011/99/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 on the European protection order. Available at: https://eur-lex.
europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32011L0099&qid=1563808386845&from=EN
(31) DG Justice and Consumers, Guidance document related to the transposition and implementation of Directive 2012/29/EU of the European Parliament and
of the Council of 25 October 2012 establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime.
In this chapter, political initiatives and legal pro-
visions of risk assessment and risk management
are presented at EU, international and national
levels.
Key point
The first step to protec ting victims of intimate
partner violence from fur ther victimisation
and to providing them with better suppor t
is the development of a robust legal and
political framework on national, EU and
international levels.
1.1. European Union legal
framework
Protecting and supporting v ictims of intimate
partner violence is a continued priority at EU level
and many legislative and polic y steps have been
taken to improve system responses, to prevent
violence against women and to support vic tims.
In particular, the Victims Rights Directive (30) con -
stitutes the major legal instrument which estab-
lishes the minimum standards on the rights, sup-
port and protection of victims of crime. It aims
to strengthen the rights of victims across the EU,
ensuring that they are able to receive a minimum
level of protection, support, access to justice, res-
toration and compensation. This is regardless of
where the crime takes place within the EU or of
the victims nationality. The other two EU legal
instruments that could be applied in the risk as-
sessment and risk management of intimate part-
ner violence are the European protection order
1.1.1. Vict ims ’ Right s Directive
The core objec tive of the Victims Rights Direc-
tive is to meet victims  and their family members
needs in an individual manner, based on an in-
dividual assessment, and apply a targeted and
participatory approach towards the provision of
information, suppor t, protection and procedural
rights (31).
Article 22 of the directive is relevant both
to risk assessment and risk management.
Primarily, it calls specifically for individual
assessment of the victim by the relevant
services, and promotes a case -by-case
approach towards victims. The purpose of
the individual assessment of victims is to
determine whether a victim has specif ic
protection needs, and thus if special
protection measures should be applied, and
what these measures should be.
Importantly, the indiv idual approach of the direc-
tive does not create priorit y categories or a hier-
archy of victims but specif ies that special atten-
tion should be paid to victims of gender-based

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