violence against women

EDITOR 4/8/20: Recently, several countries like Poland and Turkey have expressed their wish to leave the Istanbul Convention.

Turkey and Femicide 

In 2019, 474 women were killed in Turkey – the highest number recorded in the decade.Mostly the perpetrators were left with light punishments The murder of a 27 year old woman recently led to Turkish women starting.Femicide is a sex-based hate crime term, broadly defined as "the intentional killing of females (women or girls) because they are females".

Europe and Protection of women against 

violence 

The Council of Europe had already started several initiatives to promote the

protection of women against violence since the 1990s.Over the years and across the span of several campaigns it became increasingly clear that there was a need for a set of legal standards to ensure that victims anywhere could benefit from the same level of protection.

The Convention 

“Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence”. It is mostly referred to as the Istanbul Convention Opened for signatures on 11 May 2011.

• 34 countries have signed, ratified the convention and enforced it. 

• Turkey was the first country to ratify the convention on 12 March 2012. 

• In 2017, the EU signed as well.

• It came into force on 1 August 2014.

• 12 countries have signed the convention without ratifying it.

• Armenia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and the UK.

• Russia and Azerbaijan REFUSED TO SIGN

Significance 

Istanbul Convention is the first-ever legally binding set of guidelines that creates “a comprehensive legal framework and approach to combat violence against women” and is focused on preventing domestic violence, protecting victims, and 

prosecuting accused offenders.It also states that violence against women is a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination.The Convention does outline which acts must be criminalised 

by the participating countries.

Such offences include

• Psychological violence,

• Stalking, 

• Physical violence,

• Sexual violence (including 

rape), 

• All non-consensual acts of a sexual nature with a person, 

• Forced marriage, 

• Female genital mutilation, 

• Forced abortion, 

• Forced sterilisation, 

• Honour crimes 

• Sexual harassment.

Criticism 

• One of the major points of criticism is that the Convention defines the term “gender” as “the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that 

a given society considers appropriate for women and men”.

• Some countries considered this definition as too broad and feared it could be interpreted to make way for the allowance of a third gender.

• There is no explicit mention of the terms "intersex" and "transgender" within the Istanbul Convention. 

• Although the treaty does not address issues of gay rights, opponents have claimed that the treaty promotes “L.G.B.T. 

ideology” and poses a threat to Christian morality across East and Central Europe

• The parties are, however, required to avoid any discrimination based on someone’s gender or sexual identity.

• Another aspect some countries (Turkey) are hesitant to oblige by is that the Istanbul Convention requires parties to 

include teaching material on non stereotyped gender roles. 

• This is regarded as an attempt to enforce a liberal, western lifestyle in more traditional and conservative societies.