II SÉRIE-D — NÚMERO 7

56

ANEXO D

Speech by Mr. Mendes Bota, General Rapporteur on Violence Against Women of the Parliamentary

Assembly of the Council of Europe at the Event on “Ratifying the Istanbul Convention – European

Parliament’s next challenge on the fight against domestic violence””, organized by MEP Beatriz

Becerra

Brussels, European Parliament, 19th November 2014

Dear colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen

It is always a pleasure to be amongst you. I was myself a member of the European Parliament in the past

and, why not, I hope I will have the pleasure to be a member again in the future.

I will not spend time mentioning how women’s rights and the issue of violence against women has

influenced the last eight years of my political career.

I do not need to mention my former and current responsibilities in the Parliamentary Assembly of the

Council of Europe (including the Parliamentary Network “Women Free from Violence”). You have that

information. So, let’s go straight to the point.

Introduction

I have been invited to talk about the Istanbul Convention, which is the short name for the by-now famous

Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.

Perhaps this is not very orthodox but let me start by the end. The Istanbul Convention contains the end

vision of the future we have been fighting for. The day in which the Istanbul Convention is fully implemented,

this world will be much safer, much fair and more respectful of human rights, both for women and for men.

The Istanbul Convention calls for a society based on gender equality, free of discrimination, in which nobody

can be humiliated, attacked, enslaved, exploited, coerced into marriage, ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR GENDER.

In this society of the future – in which we believe – nobody will explain, justify, minimize or condone violence

against women invoking religion, tradition, or customs.

As from the first of August this year, when the Istanbul Convention entered into force, this society of the

future is getting closer. I shall not stop working for the society of the future to be the society of the present. And

this is the reason why I am here today, to ask you to work with me to achieve this objective.

The many ways to describe the Istanbul Convention

I believe that, despite its young age, the Istanbul Convention has already set a record: no other treaty has

been defined in so many ways and praised for so many reasons.

The most common words to describe it are: unique, unprecedented, innovative, comprehensive, far-

reaching, landmark.

Ms Lakshmi Puri, Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, defined the Istanbul Convention as ‘the gold

standard’. I agree with her.

The added value of the Convention

The Istanbul Convention is the first binding instrument which explicitly recognises violence against women

as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination.

It is the first international treaty to contain a definition of gender, which refers to “the socially constructed

roles, behaviours, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men”.

This means that it is now recognised that women and men are not only biologically female or male, but that

there is also a socially constructed category of gender that assigns women and men their particular roles and

behaviours.