20 March 2021
WE WILL NOT GIVE UP ON THE İSTANBUL CONVENTION!
They want us to get used to starting our days with a new rights violation each and every day. This morning we started our day with reports on the “annulment” of the İstanbul Convention, commonly embraced as the “Constitution” of women, the most valuable jus scriptum for the prevention of violence against women and domestic violence. International conventions are not simple contracts casually signed by states “at the table.”
What rendered all international “rights” conventions possible were the great prices paid and efforts put to make them real. A great struggle for the liberation of women, too, rendered the Council of Europe İstanbul Convention possible. The convention burdens state parties with many obligations. Under Article 12, “General Obligations,” the Convention reads: “Parties shall ensure that culture, custom, religion, tradition or so-called ‘honor’ shall not be considered as justification for any acts of violence covered by the scope of this Convention.”
In other words, the Convention burdens the parties with the duty to change gender-based perspectives, eliminate all kinds of inequality between women and men, to take efficient measures to prevent violence against women.
Under “Fundamental Rights, Equality and Non-Discrimination,” the Convention also burdens the parties with the duty of “non-discrimination” on any ground including gender identity, sexual orientation, association with a national minority, migrant or refugee status, or other status. Yet, the Turkish state has withdrawn its signature from the İstanbul Convention, which it had signed following ratification in the parliament, through a presidential decree in the middle of the night.
Such a decision is one that signifies the withdrawal of rights granted to women by the Convention. We do not condone it and will keep on protecting and promoting the Convention along with exercising all our rights based on written law.
Because we do know that violence against women is political!
Human Rights Association