Nation withdraws from treaty protecting women

ISTANBUL — Turkey has withdrawn from a landmark European treaty protecting women from violence that it was the first to sign 10 years ago and that bears the name of its largest city.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decree Saturday annulling Turkey’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention is a blow to women’s rights advocates, who say the agreement is crucial to combating domestic violence.

The Council of Europe’s Secretary General, Marija Pejcinovic Buric, called the decision “devastating.”

“This move is a huge setback to these efforts and all the more deplorable because it compromises the protection of women in Turkey, across Europe and beyond,” she said.

The Istanbul Convention states that men and women have equal rights and obliges state authorities to take steps to prevent genderbased violence against women, protect victims and prosecute perpetrators.

Some officials from Erdogan’s Islamoriented party have advocated a review of the agreement, arguing it encourages divorce and undermines the traditional family, which they say are contrary to the country’s conservative values. Critics also claim the treaty promotes homosexuality through the use of categories like gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. Hate speech has been on the rise in Turkey, including the interior minister who described LGBT people as “perverts” in a tweet.

Women’s groups and their allies who have been protesting to keep the convention intact immediately called for demonstrations across the country under the slogan “Withdraw the decision, apply the treaty.”

Violence against and killing of women is on the rise in Turkey, according to rights groups. At least 77 women have been killed since the start of the year, according to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform. At least 409 women were killed in 2020, according to the group.

Zehra Zumrut Selcuk, Turkey’s minister for family, labor and social policies, tweeted that women’s rights are still protected by Turkish laws and the judicial system is “dynamic and strong enough” to enact new regulations.

Turkey was the first country to sign the Council of Europe’s “Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence” at a committee of ministers meeting in Istanbul in 2011. The law came into force in 2014.