“Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention on violence against women has shaken up our agenda”, says Rik Daems, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). “While we were supposed to devote the June plenary to the environment, this text will be at the heart of the debates”.
On the Turkish side, Rik Daems was given the commitment that a debate would be organised in the Grand National Assembly, but without much hope of a reversal, since the official exit act, scheduled for next July, is a matter for the executive alone.
In order to “advance the cause of the Convention” with countries that have not yet ratified or even signed it, the PACE President is holding numerous meetings and making representations in conjunction with the Secretary General and the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
“Progress can be made”, he said, citing the United Kingdom, “a very important country”, whose permanent representative on the Committee of Ministers confirmed a possible ratification “at the end of the year”.
For Liechtenstein, another Council of Europe member state, ratification may be envisaged as early as June, which would bring the number of ratifications to 34 (33 after Turkey’s final exit).
Other countries on which the Council of Europe is “working”: third countries such as Tunisia and Kazakhstan - “which have shown their interest” - Morocco, the Council of Europe’s “partner for democracy”, and Canada, the United States and Mexico, “observer countries”. “I have met with their ambassadors”, says Daems, who is also in contact with New Zealand, whose Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is “very concerned”.
The aim is to give the Istanbul Convention “global reach” within an international framework that includes sharing good practice, monitoring and providing experts.
There remains, Daems notes, the question of countries where the Istanbul Convention poses “problems related to the term ‘gender-based violence’, which is aimed at stereotypes that deny gender equality, but does not imply abolishing or destroying the traditional view of the family”. “The concept is not well known, especially in some Central and Eastern European countries, where political forces deliberately misinterpret it to serve their own purposes by making the Convention say what it does not say”. Convincing their governments is “a delicate and difficult exercise that must not be abandoned”.
The “high profile” event that PACE is preparing should help.
Alexander De Croo, Belgian Prime Minister and author of The Age of Women, will take part. A series of other invitations were extended to “leading personalities”. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)