Recently Poland’s justice minister, said that Poland would begin preparing the formal process to withdraw from the Istanbul convention.
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About Istanbul Convention
The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, is a human rights treaty of the Council of Europe against violence against women and domestic violence.
The treaty is the world’s first binding instrument to prevent and tackle violence against women, from marital rape to female genital mutilation.
The Council of Europe emphasised that the Istanbul convention’s sole objective is to combat violence against women and domestic violence.
The Convention does outline which acts must be criminalized by the participating countries.
Such offences include psychological violence, stalking, physical violence, sexual violence (including rape), all non-consensual acts of a sexual nature with a person, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, forced abortion, and forced sterilisation, honour crimes as well as sexual harassment.
The treaty does not explicitly mention same-sex marriage.
As of March 2019, it has been signed by 45 countries and the European Union.
Turkey became the first country to ratify the Convention, followed by 33 other countries from 2013 to 2019.
