Turkey officially leaves the Istanbul Convention
Turkey officially withdraws from the Istanbul Convention. This has been decreed by Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after announcing its withdrawal in March. The measure did not officially come into force until July, by which time it was hoped that the situation could be reversed, as withdrawal from the Convention leaves the country's women in a situation of extreme vulnerability to violence. However, as Erdogan had planned, the measure has been implemented despite pressure and feminist mobilisations worldwide.
Turkey's withdrawal from the Convention will go down in history as the first time that a member state of the Council of Europe has withdrawn from an international human rights convention. According to Amnesty International's Secretary General for Human Rights, Anis Kalamar, "Turkey has turned the clock back ten years in terms of women's rights". She went on to denounce the situation, saying that "Turkey has turned its back on the gold standard for the safety of women and girls. The withdrawal sends a reckless and dangerous message to those who abuse, maim and kill that they can continue to do so with impunity".
From Europe and international organisations, political leaders such as US President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have roundly condemned the measure. On the other hand, Erdogan's Justice and Development Party claims that "the agreement undermines the family structures that protect society". Thousands of Turkish women have agreed to organise protests across the country to stop and denounce Ankara's withdrawal from the treaty.
The Istanbul Convention, signed on 11 May 2011, is a specific international legal instrument that protects women's rights and regulates measures against any kind of violence against women. In this way, the Convention recognises violence against women as "a manifestation of the historical imbalance between women and men which has led to the domination and discrimination of women, thus depriving them of their full emancipation" and regulates as the only mechanism capable of eradicating this situation "equality as a means of preventing such violence".
The treaty's four principles of prevention, protection, criminal prosecution and policy coordination form part of a comprehensive framework for combating violence against women. The Convention has proven to be effective in protecting women and has made available the establishment of 24-hour hotlines for survivors of gender-based violence in Finland. Alongside this, it has introduced consent-based sexual violence in Iceland, Sweden, Greece, Croatia, Malta, Denmark and Slovenia since 2018.
Alongside this, the Convention protects both women and girls and makes specific provisions for those who are migrants and refugees. In addition, it urges Governments to recognise violence against women as "a form of persecution" and a ground for granting international protection and asylum. The document has been signed by 46 European countries, of which only 34 have ratified it, meaning that 12 countries have not yet complied with it.
The Commissioner for Human Rights of the European Council, Dunja Mijatovic, has sent a letter to the Ministers of the Interior and Justice expressing her concern about Turkey's withdrawal and expressing her "concern about the escalation of homophobia on the part of some officials". Turkey has claimed that membership of the Convention "normalises homosexuality", when in fact nothing in the Treaty talks about LGBTI people. "All the measures stipulated in the Istanbul Agreement strengthen the foundations and family ties by preventing and combating the main cause of family destruction, which is violence," said Mijatovic.
Paradoxically, the host country where the Convention was born is withdrawing from one of the most important legal documents in terms of regulating violence against women. In the absence of official figures from the Turkish government, so far this year 189 women have been killed by gender-based violence in Turkey, according to the German organisation "Stop the Murder of Women".
On the other hand, Poland has presented a plan to withdraw from the Convention and is pushing for the Constitutional Tribunal to examine "its compatibility" with the Polish Constitution "because of its ideological elements". Hungary has already asked the government not to ratify the document, and Bulgaria's Constitutional Court has called the Convention "incompatible with its Constitution". In addition, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have refused to ratify. In addition, Azerbaijan and Russia are the only Council of Europe member states that have not signed the treaty.