It was adopted in and entered into force in The Convention is the first European instrument that aims legally to prevent gender-based violence, protect victims of violence, and punish perpetrators. It explains what countries have to do to prevent and combat violence against women and domestic violence. Some of the measures are awareness raising, data collection, and legal measures for example recognising that forced sterilisation or female genital mutilation is a form of violence against women.
The focus is for governmental bodies to be involved in prevention, prosecution, and protection activities. This can be done through training, education, resources, law enforcement, and legal systems. Thank to organisations of persons with disabilities, the Convention has been translated in Easy to read in different languages:.
You can find more information on the ratification of the Convention on this website. This means that they have to adopt laws, policies and measures to apply the Convention. You can access the timetable for the first baseline evaluation procedure here.
Data show that, on average, women and girls with disabilities are 2 to 5 times more likely to face violence than other women and girls. Violence may include domestic and gender-based violence, institutional violence, forced sterilisation, contraception and abortion, and harassment, including sexual harassment. Despites being more at risk of becoming victims of violence, women and girls with disabilities receive limited awareness and education on violence and sexual education.
Due to lack of awareness, accessibility, and reasonable accommodation, they have difficulties or even cannot have access to support and justice. All these aspects are covered by the Istanbul Convention. When drafting this Convention, many principles from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities were taken into consideration.
