EU member countries and lawmakers reached an agreement on Tuesday (6 February) on the bloc’s first rules to tackle violence against women, the European Parliament and officials said.

The law seeks to protect women in the 27-nation European Union from gender-based violence, forced marriages, female genital mutilation and online harassment.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, first proposed the major legislation on 8 March 2022, to mark International Women’s Day.

“It’s a clear message across the union that we take violence against women seriously,” EU lawmaker Frances Fitzgerald told reporters in Strasbourg after the announcement.

“It is a directive that the women and girls all across the European Union have asked for for over 30 years,” another lawmaker, Evin Incir of Sweden, said.

“For the first time ever, we criminalise widespread forms of cyberviolence, such as non-consensual sharing of intimate images,” Vera Jourova, European Commission vice president for values and transparency, said on social media.