Nature and magnitude of violence against women in parliaments and solutions to address the phenomenon

The paper will present the research projects from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) which have provided evidence and brought to light the nature and magnitude of violence against women in parliaments: the ground-breaking 2016 international study on sexism, harassment and violence against women parliamentarians and two regional studies on the same topic: the 2021 study in parliaments in Africa and the 2018 study in parliaments in Europe. https://www.ipu.org/resources/publications/issue-briefs/2021-11/sexism-harassment-and-violence-against-women-in-parliaments-in-africa https://www.ipu.org/resources/publications/issue-briefs/2018-10/sexism-harassment-and-violence-against-women-in-parliaments-in-europe https://www.ipu.org/resources/publications/issue-briefs/2016-10/sexism-harassment-and-violence-against-women-parliamentarians Comparing the main findings by regions, the presentation will look at the prevalence of psychological, sexual, physical and economic violence directed against women in parliament because of their gender, which seek to reduce women to silence and exclude them from political life. It will also examine who are the main perpetrators of gender-based violence against women parliamentarians, where it occurred and the intersectional nature of this violence, based both on the identity of the women parliamentarians (age, disability, minority group status and marital status) and on their position and political activities. The aim of the research is to get a more detailed picture of the violence experienced by women in politics, understand it better and turn from analysis to solutions for awareness-raising, prevention and action on sexism, harassment and violence against women in parliaments and in politics.