#Me too in Europe: where are we?

Audio 7:30 p.m.

© Bertrand GUAY / AFP

By: Léa-Lisa Westerhoff Follow

2 mins

4 years after the start of the #Me too movement in Europe, have things changed?

Throughout the continent, speech continues to be freed, but what about behavior?

In December 2021, the European Parliament adopted a resolution to combat sexual harassment within the European institutions themselves.

The text has no legislative value and is not binding, but it came as a reminder that the problem of sexual harassment is far from settled, Laxmi Lota.

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And the situation is not much different in the UK. Within the Westminster Parliament and government, in recent years, several ministers and MPs have been accused of sexual harassment. In 2017, two ministers even resigned and since 2018, a mechanism within Parliament allows complaints to be filed in the event of sexual assault. But here again, the system struggles to correct entrenched practices. The report by

Tarana Burke, the one who launched these two words "Me Too" 14 years ago in the United States, regrets today that the movement "

". And it is true that in the Balkans too, it is thanks to a Serbian actress that a year ago (2021) almost to the day, a wave of freedom of speech began on rapes and sexual violence committed in against women. But in recent weeks, this movement has found new life and now points to the responsibility of the witnesses to this violence and the need to act,

It was, a week ago, a historic verdict. For the first time, a high-ranking member of Bashar al-Assad's intelligence services was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life after a trial held in Germany; the country where Anwar Raslan, responsible for murder and acts of torture against thousands of Syrians, had taken refuge after deserting. Behind this arrest, there is a man and the commitment of a life, Anwar al-Bunni, 59, lawyer and Syrian human rights activist, now a refugee in Germany, has largely contributed to this historic epilogue for the victims of the Syrian civil war. His portrait by

And

leans on the word “Schwurbler” for our column “In a word”.

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