Croatia to launch ratification of Istanbul Convention

Violence against women is unacceptable and efforts to eradicate it are a precondition for ensuring gender equality.

On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced on Friday that the government would launch a procedure for the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, known as the Istanbul Convention.

Plenkovic said that women victims of domestic violence in Croatia must be better protected and perpetrators punished, and that for this reason the Minister of Demography, Family, Youth and Social Policy, Nada Murganic, would launch a procedure for the ratification of the Istanbul Convention by the Croatian Parliament as soon as possible, according to a government press release.

The Istanbul Convention, which was signed by Croatia in 2013, entered into force in 2014 following its ratification by ten Council of Europe member states. In March 2016, the European Commission proposed that the European Union ratify the document as well.

The Convention establishes standards for the protection of victims of violence, access to shelters, telephone helplines, and prosecution of perpetrators. 

"Violence against women is unacceptable and efforts to eradicate it are a precondition for ensuring gender equality," the press release said.

 

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