I. The Istanbul Convention – recent developments and the road ahead

State of signatures and ratifications

The majority of Council of Europe member States have signed or ratified the Istanbul Convention. 17 States are now parties to the Convention,[1] and 20 additional States signed the Convention and are taking action towards ratification.[2] More countries are expected to sign or ratify in the coming months.

Setting up the monitoring mechanism

The two bodies composing the Istanbul Convention monitoring mechanism, namely GREVIO, an independent expert group, and the Committee of the Parties, a political body representing the States Parties to the Convention, should become operational by the autumn of 2015.

The Committee of the Parties will meet on 4 May 2015 for the first time. It will consist of representatives of the 15 States Parties in which the Convention has already entered into force. The main objective of the meeting is to elect the first ten members of GREVIO. A total of 21 candidates have been nominated by 12 States Parties. The list of candidates for GREVIO membership has been made public.

The Committee of the Parties will also decide on the possibility for representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly to participate in its future meetings.

Parliamentary involvement in monitoring

The Istanbul Convention contains a specific provision on parliamentary involvement in monitoring (Article 70). This involvement implies that GREVIO reports are submitted to national parliaments and that the Parliamentary Assembly takes stock at regular intervals of the implementation of the Convention. I have no doubt that members of the Parliamentary Assembly and national parliaments will make the best use of this possibility offered by the Convention.

II. Forced marriage

Forced marriage is not only a grave human rights violation, but it also puts women and girls at higher risks of sexual and other forms of violence.

In its Recommendation (2002) 5 of 30 April 2002 on the protection of women against violence, the Committee of Ministers recommended to Council of Europe member States that forced marriage be prohibited.

The Parliamentary Assembly repeatedly called for the criminalisation of this form of violence (e.g. Resolution 1468 (2005) on forced marriage and child marriage of 5 October 2005; Resolution 1662 (2009) on action to combat gender-based human rights violations, including the abduction of women and girls, of 28 April 2009).

The Parliamentary Assembly’s calls were heard by the drafters of the Istanbul Convention. States bound by this ground-breaking treaty are now under a legal obligation to criminalise forced marriage under Article 37 of the Convention. This obligation covers situations of forced marriage on the territory of the State Party concerned as well as situations where a person is lured abroad with the intention of forcing this person to enter into a marriage. It also imposes on States to ensure that aiding or abetting and attempts of forced marriage are established as offences.

A year ago, less than half of our member States had introduced a specific criminal offence on forced marriage[3]. I hope that the steady increase in the number of States bound by the Istanbul Convention and the future monitoring of the implementation of this treaty will help to ensure the widespread criminalisation of forced marriage across the continent.

However, criminalisation alone cannot eradicate the phenomenon. The Istanbul Convention also requires that a set of other measures be taken to tackle this and other forms of violence:

• in the area of prevention, through for instance awareness-raising campaigns, teaching material and training of professionals;
• in the area of protection, through inter alia shelters, national telephone helplines and support services;
• in the area of prosecution, including by ensuring that the proceedings are not wholly dependent upon a report or complaint filed by the victim.

The Convention also covers situations of migrant victims of forced marriage taken abroad for the purpose of marriage and who, as a result, lose their residence status in their usual country of residence. The Convention imposes on States to ensure that such victims regain their status.

I should underline that comprehensive responses to forced marriage should be part of State co-ordinated policies on violence against women and domestic violence. The obligation on States Parties to the Convention to collect data on this and other forms of violence, as previously called for by the Assembly, should be of tremendous help to prevent and combat forced marriage effectively.

Forced marriage has no place neither in Europe nor elsewhere. We now have a major tool in our hands with the Istanbul Convention to eradicate this scourge.

[1] Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Turkey.

[2] Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Switzerland, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

[3] Analytical study of the results of the fourth round of monitoring the implementation of the Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation Rec (2002) 5, published in March 2014.