The ratification of the Istanbul Convention by all EU members looks bleak. The women's rights effort is under heavy disinformation attacks by far-right politicians, religious zealots and controlled media.
The Czech Senate voted after seven hours of debate against ratifying the European Council’s key convention on combating violence against women and domestic violence. However much of the debate ascribed language and intent to the convention that does not appear in the actual text, which received little attention before the late January vote.
The European Union ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, more popularly known as the Istanbul Convention, in June 2023. However, the odds of each individual member nation ratifying the IC appear to be low.
In many countries, the Istanbul Convention has become linked in the minds of its critics with controversies over LGBTQ+ rights, gay marriage and same-sex couple adoption, even though the convention only discusses gender-based violence against women and is focused on relations between men and women.
Czechia is the latest member of the EU to decide against ratification. Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary have already done so. Poland is debating withdrawing from it.
The convention’s downfall began in 2021 with the withdrawal of its first signer, Turkey, where critics of the convention claimed it promoted gender propaganda and attacked religion and traditional family values.
However, the idea that men and women should be treated equally was already a controversial proposition in Turkey.
In November 2023, a pre-election agreement between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP party and its allies included a demand for the repeal law No. 6284, which provides protection for women who experience domestic violence. A 2021 OECD report found that of women in Turkey experience “physical or sexual violence from partners.”
Some Islamist parties in Turkey also have advocated for a man’s testimony to “” than a woman’s in courts. Erdoğan himself has he does not believe in gender equality: "You cannot put women and men on an equal footing…It is against nature."
In Czechia, the Senate’s debate included speeches fixated on the interpretation of the word “gender.” For instance, Vice President of the Senate Jiří Oberfalzer the convention introduces the term “gender identity,” although the term appears nowhere in the text.
Senator Michael Canov the convention’s definition of gender to claim that the convention would allow or lead to “sex changes” for children, although nothing in the convention supports the view that gender is self-identified rather than biological.
In fact, the convention uses the terms “gender stereotypes” or gender as a “socially established role,” when describing the social barriers women face and how these stereotypes contribute to violence toward women.
Article 12, in particular, advises countries to promote change away from “prejudices, customs, traditions and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority of women.”
Czech websites identified with misinformation, like CZ24 News, advanced the claim that the Istanbul Convention promotes a “gender ideology.” An article by politician Jana Marková the IC of killing the “traditional family” and putting children at risk of “gender reassignment like in the U.S.”
Czech media also promoted the unsupported claims that the convention would limit parental rights and promote illegal migration.
A primary target of disinformation has been the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, or , which monitors and publishes reports on the convention’s implementation and success. Articles and political statements have claimed without foundation that GREVIO would steal children away from their parents or indoctrinate children in schools.
In fact, the convention’s article on education is limited to promoting “mutual respect” between men and women and “non-violent conflict resolution in interpersonal relationships,” as well as general awareness about gender-based violence against women.
Some politicians, like Member of Parliament Nina Nováková, say that it would allow people to claim asylum based on their “gender identity.” In reality, two articles in the convention set rules for granting asylum to women, but neither is based on “gender identity.”
Article 60 calls on parties to “take necessary legislative or other measures to ensure that gender-based violence against women” is considered a basis for an asylum claim.