Luxembourg: Human Rights Violation Analysis

The violence against women and domestic violence are a highlighed issue for Luxembourg. This blogpost is an analysis of human rights violations and prevention measures of a small country in the middle of Europe.

1. Luxembourg As A State and Human Rights Policy in General

     The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has a constitutional monarchy. It is a democratic parliamentary form of government with a popularly elected unicameral parliament. This is called the Chamber of Deputies. The prime minister of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is the leader of the dominant party and at the same time, the party coalition in parliament. The Grand Ducal Police is responsible to maintain internal security and keep reporting to the Ministry of Internal Security. Civilian authorities in Luxembourg have effective control over the security forces within the country. For the possibility of violations, the government has mechanisms to identify and punish officials who commit human rights abuses. These mechanisms are not only applying to officials but also to civilians who commit human rights violations.

    In Luxembourg, there are several domestic and international human rights groups are being operating without any government restriction. They are allowed to investigate and publish their findings on human rights violations within the country. Luxembourg is generally acting in cooperation and being responsive to those findings. Moreover, Luxembourg has government human rights bodies to deal with human rights cases and these are Consultative Commission for Human Rights, the Ombudsman Committee for the Rights of Children, the Interministerial Committee on Human Rights, and the Center for Equal Treatment. As these consultive bodies, Luxembourg had some recommendations from Human Rights Committee for human rights violations within the state borders. In the following section, the paper will focus on human rights violations, regarding mostly women rights and in the third section, will try figure out how to prevent these violations by the state’s law and with aforementioned consultive bodies. Whilst analyzing prevention methods, we will take into account the several human rights instruments. Therefore, we will be mainly focusing on human rights treaties, such as the Convention of Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and International Covenant of Civial and Political Rights and also reports and Concluding Observations made to Luxembourg by bodies like the Human Rights Council and the Committee of Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. Through this analysis, we will also regard case law from Luxembourg related to gender-based violence and gather data of these types of crimes that have occurred in the country of choice from the last years.

2 – Types of Human Rights Violations

There are several cases in Luxembourg that were taken to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which dealt with the violation of several human rights. Some of the most noteworthy consisted in the violations of rights such as the right to life (contained in Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR)), the right to a fair trial (Article 6 ECHR), right to freedom of expression (contained in article 10 ECHR) and also the prohibition of discrimination (Art 14 ECHR). Besides all of these human rights violation cases, there are women's rights abuses cases as well. These are argued within the country, so the violence against women and domestic violence will be covering within the state practice. 

The European Court of Human Rights was established in 1959, and it ensures that the Member States of the Council of Europe respect and enforce the rights presented in the ECHR. The citizens of Luxembourg can resort to the ECtHR after exhausting all other domestic court systems. Concerning the right to life, the ECHR held a violation of Art 2 ECHR in the Pereira Henriques v. Luxemburg case law, where a man was killed in a work accident, and no proper investigation was conducted made. No remuneration was offered to his family, so his wife started this proceeding. The right to a fair trial (Article 6 ECHR) has been regarded by the ECtHR in several notable cases, including the right to a fair hearing within reasonable time and the right to assistance of counsel. Freedom of expression is regarded in Article 10 ECHR and has been contemplated in some cases in Luxembourg, dealing with the harassment of journalists due to their news articles. In such instances in which journalists commentated on the Corruption of members of the Luxembourg Government, the Court held a violation of Article 10.

Violence against women and domestic violence are also significantly an issue within Luxembourg. The law instruments of the State are prohibiting domestic violence and other types of violence such as rape, sexual harassment, etc. Penalties of the state may include imprisonment and fines. Moreover, relevant police officers are responsible to investigate whether there is an application from a victim to the any NGOs. According to the investigated cases of rape and domestic violence in 2019, an increase of around 13 percent and 12.8 percent have been recorded, respectively, over the same period in the previous year.

            According to the latest report of the Europen Institute for Gender Equality on women's experiences of violence in Luxembourg, the score of the country in violence is 32.3/100, which is above the EU average. In Luxembourg, 38 % of women have experienced physical/sexual violence since they are teens, 71% of these women have experienced health consequences as a result and 19% of them did not tell the violence that they experienced to anyone. At the societal level, violence against women costs Luxembourg an estimated EUR 235 million a year.

The authorities of Luxembourg are providing financial assistance for victims of domestic abuse, and this financial help involves shelter, counseling, three separate hotlines (one is initiated during the Covid-19 pandemic), and psychological support. There are no reports of coerced or involuntary sterilization by the government. The Ministry of Equality created a website to raise public awareness towards abuses that women are facing and provided telephone numbers to assist women who might need help.

3 – Prevention of HRS Violations/ Law Instruments

Luxembourg has ratified several human rights instruments, which contain rights for women. It is relevant to mention the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, resulting in a more focused approach for the protection of women’s rights, in comparison to the ICCPR and ICESCR. Luxembourg has signed and ratified the Istambul Convention in 2011. This Convention is crucial for the protection of women’s rights, as it constitutes a landmark for the fight against gender-based violence.

The CEDAW implements an agenda for national action on discrimination against women and urges all states that are Parties to it to take action and enforce these provisions in their national policies and legislation. By ratifying this convention, States compromise and are bound to put their provisions into practice and submit a report on the matters to the Committee every four years.

In 1999, significant progress was made regarding the issue of violence against women. Many campaigns were made to raise awareness and sensitize the general public to these kinds of matters. However, there were concerns from the Committee, as Luxembourg did not present legislation covering the issue of domestic violence, sexual violence against women. Then, the Committee urged the country to take measures and to collect information on this subject. Moreover, Luxembourg should continue to pay particular attention to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), its Optional Protocol, and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which takes action on eliminating violence against women and studying the causes and consequences of this phenomenon.

In 2003, Luxembourg adopted the Domestic Violence Law, which constitutes a significant landmark, as it is a crucial way to prosecute offenders and raise public awareness on this issue. As a result of this law, police authorities are authorized to evict people against whom there are allegations that they are committing acts of violence against their significant other. Even though there had been improvements on reaching equality between men and women in various areas, the Committee still displayed concerns over the fact that traditional perspective on the roles of men and women remained in Luxembourg, and there was an urge to eliminate these misconceptions and educate the public towards a more progressive view. For example, there is the stigma that women should stay at home and educate the children, whereas men can continue pursuing their careers. Therefore, the Committee indicates that some challenges to women’s employment should be faced by providing childcare facilities in the workplace.

Regarding violence against women, concerns remain towards domestic violence, including sexual violence and rape against women. The Committee, in its report for Luxembourg, invited the country to take measures on punishing the offenders and creating and providing a sufficient number of shelters for women who are victims of these types of crimes. For this goal, it is necessary to grant women protection and make them feel safe with the staff of these shelters and trust Luxembourg’s system. 

Monitoring is also vital for a strategic combat against these violations. This way, collecting essential data and statistics over these crimes helps the State create new strategies and legislation to fight these concerns. Not only these reports to the Committee are a way to see the improvements made by the country, but they also help detect the flaws and errors and provide some guidance towards these issues.

Taking action is necessary because when a State fails to punish the perpetrators of this kind of violence, it encourages further abuse and gives the wrong idea to society that it is acceptable that men commit violence against women. Luxembourg has also ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which entered into force on October 1st of 2003. From that point, women have the right to bring complaints against the State, through the CEDAW Committee, for violating the rights enshrined in the Luxembourg Convention, when domestic remedies have not produced satisfaction. Luxembourg has also ratified the amendment to article 20 of the Convention, which will allow the Committee to meet as often as it deems necessary, with the approval of the General Assembly.

Formal equality for women and men is guaranteed in the Constitution of Luxembourg in its article 11(2), which expresses the following: “Women and men have equal rights and duties. The State may adopt specific measures to eliminate any obstacles to equality between women and men and to promoting de facto equality in the exercise of rights and duties.”. 

According to STATEC data, in 2019, the divorce rate rose to 98% in Luxembourg. The Covid-19 situation lead to the confinement of the population. Even though this measure was to prevent the spreading of the virus and therefore provide people safety, it contributed to the rising of domestic violence. Domestic violence has shown to increase during the pandemic as women have to be locked with their aggressors and have no possibilities of escaping quickly. The Covid-19 pandemic also increased unemployment and mental health concerns, leading to more violent behavior from the aggressors.

Guaranteeing women’s rights remains a difficult task, which should be encouraged with more monitoring mechanisms and legislation enforcement. Funding should be granted to women's shelters and victim’s support organizations.