During discussions in the Constitutional Revision Committee, PASOK–Movement for Change MP for the Western Sector, Nadia Giannakopoulos, took the floor to place at the center of her intervention the constitutional safeguarding of women’s rights and their protection from gender-based violence and femicide as an explicit obligation of the State.
Ms. Giannakopoulos stressed that the phenomenon shows no signs of retreat and emphasized that stricter penalties under ordinary law have, on their own, failed to curb the problem: “In 2025, 19 femicides were recorded, while reports of domestic violence nearly quintupled over a five-year period — from just over 4,000 in 2020 to nearly 23,000 in 2025 — with the most recent victim being a 39-year-old mother in Kalamata.”
Presenting PASOK’s proposal as a “chain of rights,” the MP outlined the specific amendments: to Article 5, the explicit addition of “gender” among the grounds for non-discrimination and the constitutional recognition of reproductive freedom and a person’s genetic identity; an explicit provision that protection from gender-based violence and femicide constitutes a State obligation, in alignment with the Istanbul Convention; a new clause on women’s reproductive autonomy; and a new Article 5B addressing protection from digital violence — including revenge videos, deepfakes, digital surveillance — and guaranteeing equal digital access.
Responding to the objection that such matters belong within ordinary criminal law, the MP stated: “We are not elevating criminal policy to constitutional substance. We are enshrining the right to life and equality, and we are setting a permanent measure of accountability — so that a complaint does not end in a memorial service. Ordinary law changes with each parliamentary majority; the Constitution binds them all.”
In closing, the PASOK MP called on all parliamentary factions to reach consensus on enshrining equality and the protection of women’s lives in the country’s fundamental law, noting that the broadest possible agreement must be ratified by the revisionary Parliament, after the people have first had their say: “We came with a specific text, and we call on you — beyond party lines — to write equality and the protection of women’s lives into our foundational constitutional law. I put this forward as a female MP, but above all, as the mother of three daughters. For all the girls, for all the women!”
