Tag Archives: international day for the elimination of violence against women

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. It is also the start of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign which runs to December 10^th, Human Rights Day. Two women each week are killed by a male partner here in the UK. One in four women in the UK (one in three internationally) experience abuse. Whilst the majority of victims are women, 700,000 men each year suffer domestic violence.

The Istanbul Convention, which the UK Government has signed but not ratified, was devised to tackle all forms of violence against women and domestic abuse worldwide. The full title, the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, covers all forms of violence against women and within domestic situations (including men, women and children).

As it happens, I was present at a conference on Violence and Human Rights in Istanbul back in 2012, the year after Istanbul Convention was written. Hearing Turkish academics and lawyers talk about domestic violence, often from a personal point of view which has influenced their public advocacy, was enlightening and brought home to me the global nature of this issue.