On 11 May 2021, it will be exactly ten years since the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women - or the Istanbul Convention - was opened for signature. In anticipation of this anniversary, the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU organised a one-day conference on Tuesday 6 April on gender violence in the EU.
This day was an opportunity to take stock of the implementation of the Convention, in the presence of Carlien Scheele, Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), and Marceline Naudi, President of GREVIO, the group of experts responsible for monitoring the application of the Convention by the various parties. States that have ratified the text are legally bound to comply with it. There are now 33 States involved. Twenty-one are members of the EU (see EUROPE 12609/5).
Carlien Scheele and Marceline Naudi highlighted in particular the progress made since the introduction of the Convention. Ms Naudi underlined the evolution in the right direction of some national legislations and the progress made.
“For example, in Sweden, with the coming into force of a law recognising non-consensual sex as rape, the number of prosecutions has increased”, Ms Naudi said.
She also welcomed the fact that signatories such as Spain have extended their legislation to cover various forms of violence against women.
“We regularly see that the implementation of the Convention is mainly based on measures concerning domestic violence, which is only one of the forms of violence envisaged by the Convention”, she said, calling for the deployment of substantial resources against online harassment, female genital mutilation (see EUROPE 12652/19) or forced marriages.
Ms Naudi also highlighted an increase in several countries in the financial resources allocated to preventing and fighting violence against women.
This violence represents an “enormous financial burden”, Ms Scheele said: “In 2014, we estimated that violence against women cost the EU €226 billion over the year”, she said. This figure, which the EIGE will update shortly, includes the cost of the loss of economic production caused by this violence and the cost of providing services (social, health, legal, etc.)
“Don’t get me wrong. We absolutely need to invest in shelters protecting women fleeing violence. Even better, we should introduce immediate restraining orders so that women and children don’t have to flee their homes in the first place, just as the Convention advises”, Ms Scheele added.
Setbacks
The Director of the EIGE concluded her speech by welcoming the cooperation and progress made possible by the Convention, although this was somewhat overshadowed by more “bad news”.
A reference to Turkey’s recent decision to leave the treaty (see EUROPE 12686/9) and the growing opposition to the text in some EU states, most notably Poland (see EUROPE 12536/7).
The Polish government also sent a statement to the Portuguese Presidency in response to some of the remarks made at the conference, highlighting the actions undertaken by Warsaw to combat violence. Actions that go “beyond what is required by the Convention”, according to the Polish government.
In her review, Marceline Naudi deplored the widespread circulation, “often for political purposes” of “deliberate misrepresentations about the objectives of the treaty”. Its legal standards are now seen by some “as unconstitutional, threatening the traditional family or encouraging homosexuality”, she said.
Several other speakers also called for the fight against this disinformation. And all supported the need to implement this treaty, especially in a context of crisis that has seen violence against women increase. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)