Turkey Withdraws from Istanbul Convention Against Violence Towards Women

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has withdrawn the country from an international agreement (Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, also known as the Istanbul Convention) aimed at the protection of women, as stated in an official dispatch released on Friday, despite calls from activists who see this Convention as a key to combat rising violence within families, Reuters reports.

Signed in Istanbul, the Council of Europe agreement commits to preventing, prosecuting, and eliminating domestic violence and promoting equality. Turkey, which signed this agreement in 2011, witnessed an increase in the number of femicides last year.

No justification was provided for the withdrawal from the agreement, however, officials from the ruling Justice and Development Party stated last year that the government was discussing the possibility of withdrawing from the agreement amidst disagreements over how to curb the rise in violence against women.

“The guarantee of women's rights lies in our sub-legislative acts, primarily the normative acts in our Constitution. Our judicial system is dynamic and strong enough to introduce new norms if necessary,” said the country’s Minister of Family, Labour and Social Policies, Zehra Zumrut, on Twitter, without clarifying the reasons for this move.

Many conservatives in Turkey believe that the agreement undermines the structure of the family and encourages violence. Critics of the withdrawal from the Convention have stated that it will further alienate Turkey from EU values, to which the country still aspires for membership. They argue that the agreement and the related legislative developments should be enforced more strictly.

Turkey is not the first country to move towards abandoning the agreement. Poland's Supreme Court had closely examined the treaty after one of the government members stated that Warsaw should withdraw from the treaty, which the national government deems excessively liberal.

Erdoğan has condemned violence against women, stating this month that his government will work to root out violence against women. However, critics argue that the government has not done enough to prevent femicide and domestic violence.

Turkey does not maintain official statistics on femicides. Data from the World Health Organization shows that 38% of women in Turkey have experienced violence from a partner at some point in their lives, compared to 25% in Europe.

Measures such as marking individuals known to resort to violence and creating an application for women on smartphones to notify the police, which has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times, have been adopted in Ankara.