Babacan promises return to İstanbul Convention

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Democracy and Progress (DEVA) Party Chair Ali Babacan has promised a return to the İstanbul Convention, a Council of Europe Treaty for combating violence against women and children, from which Türkiye withdrew in 2021.

Babacan yesterday addressed party members their headquarters in Ankara, the capital, presenting the party's 19 points Women's Action Plan, together with Elif Esen, head of women policies in the party.

The 19-point action plan primarily focuses on supporting the participation of women in society and combatting violence against women.

Women's rights have increasingly become a hot topic for the upcoming 2023 elections, with the main opposition party CHP announcing a draft bill in October to the parliament over the use of headscarves in the public sphere. Not much later, President Erdoğan suggested a constitutional change to guarantee the right to wear a headscarf. Now the center-right DEVA party announced its plan to improve women's position in Türkiye's society. 

"Women were deprived of their most basic rights"

The former economy chief of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) emphasized at the meeting that the AKP-MHP alliance  is following a policy that opposes women's rights because they know that they will lose in the upcoming elections and that the proposed headscarf amendment is a form of political opportunism right before the elections. 

"In our country, the right to wear the headscarf had become a tool of oppression by the powerful. Even though there was no prohibition in the Constitution and laws, those who did not know the law persecuted women. Women were deprived of their most basic rights."

Babacan, in recent weeks, has shown regrets for some of the actions of its former party, such as the change to a presidential system in 2017 and the decision to withdraw in 2021 from the Istanbul Convention, a UN human rights treaty signed in 2011 to protect women's rights. 

The AKP offshoot now tries to reverse many of these changes as it is part of "the table of six", a strategic alliance, with a yet-to-be-announced candidate, trying to dethrone AKP chair Erdoğan from his presidential seat. 

Babacan accentuated that if the DEVA party comes to power after the elections, the first thing he will do is returning to the Istanbul convention, clarifying that he could find a reason why the current coalition annulled the treaty. 

"If violence against women is the issue, it cannot be an excuse. What superstitions did they make about the treaty? They failed to play their little political game. The outputs from the contract do not have a regulation on domestic law. They still have not explained why the treaty was terminated."

A ministry responsible for women

The party's Women's Politics President Elif Esen emphasized that there are many issues for women in Türkiye and that a ministry responsible for women should be announced. "We think that there is a need for system change considering the problems. As we talked about at the table of six, we will establish a ministry responsible for women."

As for the political participation in the party itself, the former foreign minister Babacan seems content, affirming that 35 percent of his party are women. 

"Gender equality has to be lived in its essence, not in words. With all our strengths, we will try to make women equal and strong in every field. We are trying to do this primarily in our party." (Cİ/WM/VK)