23/03/2026 Equality and Non-Discrimination | Women free from violence
Twelve years after the Istanbul Convention entered into force, the report prepared by Zita Gurmai (Hungary, SOC) outlines where implementation is falling short. While the convention has had a “positive impact on the ground,” the draft resolution adopted by the committee, calls for “renewed efforts, political will and adequate resources to counter the growing attacks on the convention through organised disinformation.” Türkiye's 2021 withdrawal, meanwhile, has “deprived women and girls of the high standards of the convention”, the text underlines.
Seven Council of Europe member states have yet to become parties to the treaty, PACE's Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination has warned in the report. The committee called on Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Lithuania and the Slovak Republic to ratify the convention, and on Türkiye to re-ratify it.
European Union data from 2024 shows that while “1 in 3 women experience physical and/or sexual violence,” just “1 in 8 report the incident to the police,” a gap the committee links to “stigma, negative attitudes and victim-blaming,” as well as “a lack of trust in the justice system.”
The draft resolution calls on states to “apply a gender perspective in the implementation of the Istanbul Convention,” to “co-operate with, involve and support the work of civil society organisations defending women's rights,” and to “adopt consent-based legal definitions of sexual violence, including rape, based on the lack of freely given consent.”
It also calls on states to “take measures to ensure that decisions on children's custody and visitation rights in cases of parental separation take into account the context of domestic violence.”
The full Assembly is expected to debate the report at a forthcoming plenary session.