ISTANBUL (AP) – Turkey withdrew on Saturday morning from an important European treaty that protects women from violence, which was the first country to sign 10 years ago and which bears the name of its largest city.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s overnight decree revoking Turkey’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention is a blow to women’s rights defenders, who say the deal is crucial to tackling domestic violence. Hundreds of women gathered in Istanbul to protest the change on Saturday.
The Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Marija Pejčinović Burić, called the decision “devastating”.
“This change is a major setback for these efforts and even more deplorable because it undermines 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 measures to prevent gender-based violence against women, protect victims and prosecute perpetrators.
Some officials in Erdogan’s Islamic party advocated a revision of the agreement, arguing that it is inconsistent with Turkey’s conservative values in encouraging divorce and undermining traditional family unity.
Critics also claim that the treaty promotes homosexuality through the use of categories such as gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. They see this as a threat to Turkish families. Hate speech has been on the rise in Turkey, including the Interior Minister who described LGBT people as “perverted” in a tweet. Erdogan rejected his existence completely.
Groups of women and their allies who have protested to keep the convention intact immediately called for demonstrations across the country on Saturday under the slogan “Withdraw the decision, implement the treaty”. They said that their years’ struggle would not be erased in one night.
Human rights groups say violence and the murder of women are on the rise in Turkey, but the interior minister called this a “complete lie” on Saturday.
A total of 77 women have been killed since the beginning of the year, according to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform. About 409 women were killed in 2020, with dozens found dead in suspicious circumstances, according to the group.
Several women’s rights groups criticized the decision. The advocacy group Women’s Coalition Turkey said the withdrawal of a human rights agreement was the first in Turkey. “It is clear that this decision will further encourage women murderers, harassers, rapists,” the statement said.
Turkey’s justice minister said the government is committed to fighting violence against women.
“We continue to protect the honor of our people, the family and our social fabric with determination,” tweeted Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul.
Erdogan repeatedly emphasized the “sanctity” of the family and asked women to have three children. Its communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said the government’s motto was “Powerful families, powerful society”.
Many women experience physical or sexual violence at the hands of their husbands or partners, but there are no up-to-date official statistics. The Istanbul Convention requires states to collect data.
Hundreds of women and allies gathered in Istanbul, wearing masks and holding flags. Their demonstration has so far been permitted, but the area has been surrounded by the police and a curfew against the coronavirus begins at night.
They shouted pro-LGBT slogans and called for Erdogan’s resignation. They applauded when a woman speaking through a megaphone said: “You cannot close millions of women in their homes. You cannot erase them from the streets and the squares. “
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 and the constitution of Turkey says that international agreements have the force of law.
Some lawyers said on Saturday that the treaty is still active, arguing that the president cannot withdraw from it without the approval of parliament, which ratified the Istanbul Convention in 2012.
But Erdogan gained broad powers with his re-election in 2018, prompting Turkey to switch from a parliamentary system of government to an executive presidency.
The Minister of Justice wrote on Twitter that, although parliament approves the treaties that the Executive puts into effect, the Executive also has the authority to withdraw from them.
Lawmakers from Turkey’s main opposition party said they would not recognize the decree and called it another “coup” in parliament, which had unanimously accepted the treaty, and a usurpation of the rights of 42 million women.