Context

• 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.

• The Convention came into force on 1 August 2014.

• India is not signed the convention.