The state of women's rights in Turkey is deeply critical and gender-based violence is on a constant rise. Withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention will only make things worse.
If there is one country that needs the Istanbul Convention more than any other, it is Turkey. Having been the first to ratify the 2011 text on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, over the years the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has set its sights on gender issues, curtailing rights and freedoms. Today Turkey is characterised by an alarming context in this respect, with femicide and abuse on the rise, further aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The government's decision last March to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention risks pushing an already compromised situation into further freefall.
The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence owes much to Istanbul, the city that is the symbol of Turkey. It was here that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe approved the document in 2011, and it was here again that the first ratification took place the following year, by the Erdoğan government. Having entered into force in 2014, this legal instrument commits states to responding to gender-based violence, introduces a whole range of new offences and imposes new forms of protection for victims of abuse and discrimination.
Turkey's accession, as the first nation to do so at that, was an important turning point for the country. While the Justice and Development Party (Akp) had promoted various legislative initiatives against gender-based violence since its leader Erdoğan came to power in 2002, many forms of discrimination persisted at both a social and institutional level. The Istanbul Convention, and the enthusiasm with which it had been approved — developed, moreover, in constant dialogue with local feminist organisations — was meant to bring about a definitive turning point in this direction, equipping the country with a fundamental instrument for achieving genuine gender equality.
Over the past decade, however, the government has distinguished itself through a series of conservative measures, statements and campaigns on motherhood and the family that have curtailed the rights women had won and deepened inequalities. The decline in Erdoğan's popularity has pushed him to court the more orthodox electorate, and the most hardline lobby groups are gaining increasing traction within political institutions. The Akp has intensified its crusade against abortion, which is legal in the country but increasingly difficult to access. Furthermore, the Turkish president has repeatedly attacked contraception, stating, for example, that "a true Muslim should not use it" and promoting large families. Women who refuse to become mothers have been described as incomplete and deficient, while Erdoğan himself has declared that men and women cannot be considered equal.
To ward off the breakdown of marriages, several laws have also been put forward to reduce financial protections for divorced women. On the question of abuse too, the government's efforts in recent years have not moved in the direction of greater protection. There was even talk of an amnesty for those convicted of raping a minor, should they decide to marry the victim.
The withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention is merely the latest step in a process that is creating a very difficult environment for Turkish women. The government's crusade against gender equality, the absence of any real plan to combat discrimination and, on the contrary, the crutch the state offers perpetrators to redeem themselves, is undoubtedly influencing the cultural climate in Turkey. And this is translating into increasingly alarming figures, both in terms of gender-based violence and from the perspective of women's social inclusion.
Female unemployment in Turkey registers the staggering figure of 70 per cent. This means that 20 million Turkish women are outside the labour market, which is therefore an overwhelmingly male preserve. In 2020, the country ranked 130th out of 153 in the Global Gender Gap index, which measures the level of social and professional equity between men and women. While these difficulties have deep roots and have remained entrenched over time, the most alarming aspect when discussing women in Turkey today is that of abuse and violence.
In 2020 there were approximately 300 femicides in the country, but the figure could be at least 50 per cent higher given that in a further 171 cases women died in suspicious circumstances. Many deaths are passed off as suicides, as in the case of a 23-year-old who was raped in the office by her boss and a colleague and then thrown from a window, making it appear to be a voluntary act. According to a 2019 survey, more than 40 per cent of Turkish women have experienced at least one form of abuse in their lifetime.
The pandemic of the past year may have given a further push in this direction: women's support organisations recorded a surge in calls reporting violence, a phenomenon also observed in Italy. In general, and paradoxically, since Turkey ratified the Istanbul Convention the number of femicides per year has doubled, a sign of how this instrument alone has not been sufficient to change the picture. Rather than reinforcing it with additional national measures, however, Erdoğan's government has chosen to discard it, paving the way for a further descent into the abyss for women's rights.
Faced with a critical situation of this kind, feminist movements and human rights organisations have never stopped making their voices heard. Following the announcement of the withdrawal from the Convention last March, thousands of people took to the streets in protest and the police responded with force. Similar scenes were witnessed in recent months in connection with certain news events that particularly shook public opinion, such as the case of Pınar Gültekin, a 27-year-old university student who was strangled, set on fire and then hidden in a barrel filled with concrete by her former partner.
Among the most active advocates for Turkish women's rights are the activists of We will stop femicide, a civil platform that monitors violence, offers legal assistance to victims of abuse, puts pressure on policy-makers and raises awareness and educates citizens on gender equality. "Women's rights have been constantly violated in Turkey and if the Istanbul Convention had been implemented effectively, many cases of femicide and abuse would have been prevented," says Ege Çakmak, one of the activists, who considers women's rights and lives to be in constant danger, with the government being part of the problem rather than the solution.
"The Istanbul Convention is a lifesaver and rather than talking about withdrawing from it we should be discussing how to implement its provisions effectively."
— Ege Çakmak, We Will Stop Femicide
The instrument's ineffectiveness is therefore not due to any weakness of its own, but simply to the fact that Turkey has consistently ignored its provisions throughout this decade. "The Istanbul Convention improves the condition of women in every respect in Turkey. It is a lifesaver and rather than talking about withdrawing from it we should be discussing how to implement its provisions effectively," Çakmak continues. "Instead of providing protection to women, the choice to deprive oneself of such an important instrument inevitably encourages men to continue with violence, in a country where femicide is already one of the main problems."
What is at stake today is the condition of Turkish women, their rights and their dignity. That is why the battle against withdrawal from the Convention has only just begun and is not set to stop until the authorities take a step back. "We will continue to fight for our rights, so that the Convention is implemented effectively and in protection of every single woman in Turkey, and until there are no more femicides," Çakmak concludes. "We have no intention of stopping."
