Turkey abandoned EU treaty that protects women from gender-based violence

Turkey on Saturday abandoned the Istanbul Convention, a pan-European treaty to prevent violence against women, signed by 45 countries ten years ago.

The departure, announced in the official state newspaper, was taken by decree of Turkish President, conservative Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who signed the same treaty when he was prime minister in 2011.

Turkey was part of the group of 14 pioneer states, which in May this year ratified in Istanbul the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.

The Eurasian country, which according to its detractors never applied the convention, thus becomes the first state to abandon the treaty, after having been, paradoxically, the first to ratify it.

“Under the leadership of our president, we continue our fight with determination so that women participate more in social, economic, political and cultural life.”, claimed after the announcement Fahrettin Altun, Director of Communication for the Turkish Presidency.

“Annul your decision, apply the treaty!” Chanted this Saturday thousands of women and men gathered in the district of Kadikoy, in Istanbul. The demonstrators carried portraits of murdered women and banners which read: “This war will be won by women”.

The intention of the Turkish government to abandon the treaty, led by the Islamist party AKP, genre mass protests in several cities across the country last year.

Erdogan assured in August 2020 that would withdraw from the agreement “if the people want” and announced his intention to create your own adapted treaty.

Conservative Islamist groups pressured the AKP for this withdrawal, considering that some articles have a negative impact on “the family structure” and go against “national values”.

They allege that the text promotes homosexuality, for the use of the term “sexual orientation”, and attacks family values, describing the relationships of “people who live together” without specifying if they are married.

In the AKP itself there is representatives critical of leaving the pact, among them some deputies and KADEM, a women’s organization close to the party and whose deputy director is Sümeyye Erdogan, the president’s daughter.

Registered Turkey 284 murders of women on sexist grounds in 2020, according to the calculations of Bianet, an NGO that has been collecting this type of case for a decade, in the absence of official figures.

The feminist platform Stop the murders of women raised this same balance to 300 and added others 171 cases of women killed in suspicious circumstances.

With information from EFE

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