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Istanbul Convention: Turkey wrestles with women's rights

2020-08-08T16:02:19.793Z


In 2012, Turkey was the first parliament to ratify the Istanbul Convention for the Protection of Women's Rights. However, she never implemented many measures. Now the AKP wants to withdraw from the agreement.


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Demonstration in Istanbul: Everywhere in Turkey people take to the streets against violence against women

Photo: Dilara Acikgoz / INA Photo Agency / imago images / INA Photo Agency

After the student Pinar Gültekin was killed by her ex-boyfriend in July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote on Twitter: "I curse all crimes against women." He has no doubt that "the murderer who killed Pinar Gültekin will receive the heaviest sentence he deserves." More and more women’s rights organizations think his tweet is a mockery.

The young woman was already the 235th victim of femicide this year, as the Turkish organization "We will stop feminicide" counts. Femicides are called murders of women if they are committed simply because the victims are women. And in Turkey, the number of these murders has increased in recent years, according to the organization: by more than 50 percent between 2015 and 2019. There were 474 femicides in Turkey in 2019. Domestic violence increased again during the corona crisis, as reported by the Federation of Women Associations of Turkey.

However, the debate in Turkey is currently moving in a different direction. While women have been taking to the streets for their rights for weeks and calling for a better implementation of the Council of Europe's Violence Protection Convention, the ruling AKP party is discussing withdrawing from the internationally binding treaty that obliges the state to protect women's rights. It is about the Istanbul Convention of the Council of Europe, which bears the name of the Turkish city in which it was signed by the first members. Turkey was the first country to ratify it in 2012.

The Istanbul Convention obliges the signatory states to classify all violence against women and girls as well as all forms of domestic violence as a crime. The agreement is binding under international law - all state bodies must implement the obligations in their national legislation.

It has already been signed by all members of the Council of Europe except Russia and Azerbaijan. 34 states have ratified it. In Germany, the convention did not come into force until 2018. Incidentally, not all states pursue this goal: Bulgaria and Hungary strictly refuse to ratify it because they consider the convention to be a "gender ideology". Behind it lies a conservative family image that is promoted in these states primarily by the Catholic Church.

A "completely distorted understanding of violence"

Sections of the Turkish ruling AKP party believe that the agreement undermines traditional family values. President Erdogan had therefore announced in February that the convention would be reviewed. And not only in Turkey there is now headwind: The national-conservative government of Poland recently announced that it would withdraw from the convention. Women's rights organizations in the country were storming. However, nothing has been decided yet.

By withdrawing from the Convention on Women's Rights, Turkey could pave the way for legislative initiatives that correspond to the country's traditional family values. The SPD politician Lale Akgün feared on Deutschlandfunk that this would be a step in the direction of an Islamic state. Women's organizations fear a change in social policy.

In fact, Turkey had never been so strict about implementing the measures of the Women's Rights Convention. Experts had repeatedly criticized that Turkey did not apply the legal norms in practice and did not implement any aid measures for women.

As early as 2018, the Council of Europe reprimanded Turkey for its handling of women's rights and attested the country a "completely distorted understanding of violence". In Turkey, rape is often seen as a misdemeanor by women who "dishonor" the family, the experts found. In addition, judges were sometimes arbitrarily lenient towards violent criminals. The Council of Europe also disliked the high number of child marriages in Turkey. Although the minimum age for a marriage in Turkey is 18 years, marriages with minors occur again and again.

Most recently, the AKP wanted to pass a bill that retroactively declares child abuse exempt from punishment if the perpetrator marries his victim. The state must prevent modern criminal laws from colliding with the traditional marriage of minors, it said. The draft had met with violent protests from women's organizations in the past. They criticized: it works like an amnesty for rapists.

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Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2020-08-08

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