Latvia wants to withdraw from Istanbul Convention against violence against women

Brussels – The Latvian Parliament voted last night (30 October) to abandon the 2016 Istanbul Convention against Violence against Women. The bill to opt out of the international treaty—in legal jargon, Lithuania is said to have “denounced” the agreement—was approved by the Saeima, the single-chamber legislature in Riga, with 56 votes in favour, 32 against, and two abstentions. 

Decisive for the outcome of the vote (which followed a 13-hour debate-filled session) was the alignment of part of the majority with the opposition. The Government coalition split: the 16 elected members of the Greens and Farmers’ Union (ZZS) voted in favour of leaving, while the 26 of New Unity (JV) and the 10 of the Progressives (PRO) voted against in the 100-member chamber.

 Premier Evika Siliņa, leader of the JV, regretted the incident: “It is cruel,” she noted, “that those who had the courage to ask for help are now witnessing their experiences being exploited for political battles.”

Now, for the abandonment of the Istanbul Accords to be effective, it must be formally promulgated by the President of the Republic, Edgars Rinkēvičs. The Head of State, although personally opposed to the move, nevertheless declared himself sceptical about the appropriateness of opposing a veto to a sovereign decision of the Parliament. 

If Rinkēvičs confirms the hemicycle’s choice, Latvia will become the first European country—and the second in the world after Turkey, which withdrew in 2021—to abandon the historic international treaty, which was intended to oblige signatories to develop norms and policies aimed at ending violence against women and domestic abuse. 

Not without a certain irony, it was this very Parliament, elected in October 2022, that ratified the Convention in November 2023, a full seven years before the Latvian government signed the treaty. At that time, the Baltic country left the list of the EU Member States that are not yet parties to the document (the others are Bulgaria, Czechia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Hungary), but it may just rejoin in the near future. 

In fact, the treaty was already in force for all Twenty-Seven from October 2023, by virtue of the EU Parliament’s green light in May of the same year. That move, which the EU executive had been asking for since 2016, had opened the door to the binding application of the Istanbul Rules throughout the twelve-star jurisdiction.

“Opposition to the Convention has always been led by Latvia’s right-wing parties, for which it is like a red rag to a bull and seen as a covert tool to spread so-called “gender theories” and even an alleged “foreign ideology” in the country.” The consensus towards these positions has grown in recent months, culminating in last September, when the legislative procedure was initiated in the Saeima, which ended with yesterday’s vote. 

After yesterday’s vote, reactions of bewilderment and discouragement poured in, from within and outside the country’s borders. In addition to the statements by part of the majority, among the authoritative voices in Latvia criticising the deputies’ decision was that of former President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, who said she was “ashamed” of such “regression.” In the past few days, there had been numerous well-attended protests in Riga against the possible exit from the Convention. 

From Strasbourg, the Council of Europe (the continental organisation for the protection of human rights, initiator of the Istanbul Convention) condemned the “dangerous message” launched by the Saeima. “An unprecedented and deeply worrying step backwards for women’s rights and human rights in Europe,” the President of the CoE Parliamentary Assembly, Theodoros Rousopoulos, described it. And added: “By abandoning the first and only international treaty that recognises violence against women as a human rights violation, Latvia sends a dangerous message, namely that you can question or compromise on the safety and dignity of women.”