Brussels - Chairperson, Deputy Chairperson and Member of the Gender Equality Committee Ivan Vilibor Sinčić, Irena Petrijevčanin Vuksanović and Silvano Hrelja participated on Tuesday at the Inter-parliamentary meeting around the theme: "The Istanbul Convention: combating violence against women at national and EU level". The meeting was organized by the EP Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality following the tradition to celebrate the International Day for the elimination of Violence against Women.
This event brought together parliamentarians from 15 EU Member States, European Parliament and Norway in order to assess what is the state of the gender based violence with a special emphasis on the state of the ratification and implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention).
During the meeting, three panel discussions were held with talks about ratification of the Istanbul Convention in the signatory states and the difficulties observed based on the evaluation conducted by the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO). Opinions on experiences and best practices of the Istanbul Convention were exchanged as well as the ways in which Member States are combating gender based violence and domestic violence in practice, while the issue of the European Union accession to the Istanbul Convention was considered.
Istanbul Convention was signed by 44 Council of Europe member states, out of 47, and the European Union. It has been ratified by 27 Council of Europe member states, 17 of them being EU Member States.