Last week, the European Parliament backed the EU’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. What does it mean for Lithuania, which has not ratified the document yet?
The convention, adopted by the Council of Europe in Istanbul in 2011, sets international standards for combating violence against women and domestic violence.
All but six EU countries – Lithuania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, and Slovakia – have ratified the Istanbul Convention, and Poland is threatening to pull out. The EP’s backing of the document is aimed at completing the ratification process.
However, the step does not imply automatic ratification of the convention by all EU member states – they would still have to do so through national procedures.
Lithuania signed the Istanbul Convention 10 years ago, but the country’s parliament is yet to ratify it. The process is delayed by some politicians’ fears of a “gender ideology”, ie fears that the convention is aimed at legitimising the concept of “social gender” in the Lithuanian legal system.
What it says
The Istanbul Convention condemns “all forms of violence against women and domestic violence” and recognises “that the realisation of de jure and de facto equality between women and men is a key element in the prevention of violence against women”.
The document states that women are disproportionately affected by domestic violence, but men can also be victims of it.
According to the convention, „gender shall mean the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men”.
Countries that ratified the convention are obliged to take the necessary measure to adopt a policy and allocate adequate financial and human resources to prevent all forms of violence.
They are also obliged to designate or establish one or more official bodies responsible for the coordination, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of policies and measures aimed at preventing and combating violence.
Other commitments include taking the necessary measures to promote changes in the socio-cultural patterns of behaviour, eliminating practices based on the idea of women’s inferiority or stereotyped roles for women and men.
Incorrect terminology
The EP’s decision is a strong recommendation for all EU member states to ratify the Istanbul Convention, said Dalia Leinartė, a professor at Vytautas Magnus University and a member of the UN CEDAW Committee.
“If the countries think that their daily lives are shaped by the democratic values that unite the EU countries, they should follow the recommendation and ratify the convention,” she told LRT.lt.
According to her, the Istanbul Convention is an important document that offers a comprehensive plan and strategy to combat domestic violence.
“The convention is a comprehensive set of legal, preventive, and informative measures for governments, civil society organisations, educational institutions, and law enforcement agencies,” Leinartė stressed.
In her words, the various myths about the document and what it implies mostly come from Russian propaganda.
“Moscow is using soft power to fight against Western values, and they also manipulate the definition of gender that would emerge after the ratification of the convention,” she said.
Moreover, Leinartė pointed out the incorrect use of terminology in the different language translations of the document. In some countries, dictionaries have different terms for biological sex and gender stereotype, she said. In Lithuania, however, there is only one term – lytis (sex) – and the term “social gender”, used in the Lithuanian translation of the convention, is inaccurate.
“Our linguists have not made the effort to introduce a new term that would have defined stereotypes rather than biological sex without any complications,” Leinartė said.
The ratification of the Istanbul Convention by EP should, however, benefit women in countries that have not backed the document yet.
“Now, we have a good basis for having gender-based violence as a euro crime. Now, women can also go to the European Court of Justice. So, this is really a basis for all women in Europe and an obligation to those member states who haven’t ratified the Istanbul Convention so far,” said Austrian MEP Evelyn Regner.
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