Erdogan announces new plan to combat violence against women

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a new action plan to combat violence against women in Ankara on Thursday, the same day the country formally withdrew from an international treaty to prevent gender-based violence.

Erdogan said the purpose of the new action plan is to "raise awareness on influencing and changing society's perspective on violence against women and increasing their sensitivity," reported state-owned media Anadolu Agency.

"The first goal of the new plan is to review Turkey's legislation on combating violence and its effective implementation," he explained, adding that efforts to prevent violence against women will be “even stronger” under the new plan. 

The plan is expected to last through 2025.

The 2011 Istanbul Convention, signed by 45 countries and the European Union, requires governments to adopt legislation prosecuting domestic violence and gender-based abuse as well as marital rape and female genital mutilation. Turkey officially withdrew from the treaty on Thursday, three months after Erdogan announced his intention to do so.

Erdogan explained that he withdrew from the treaty because of its "incompatibility" with "local values,” but that the fight to stop violence against women didn't start with the Istanbul Convention, and it will not end with the country's departure from it.

Ankara’s withdrawal from the convention has drawn international and national condemnation. The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) called the decision illegal, noting widespread protests against leaving the treaty.

"Thousands of women have been on the streets against the decision to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention," a decision that was made "unlawfully and with the signature of one man," HDP's Ankara deputy Filiz Kerestecioglu said in a press conference on Wednesday.

There were protests on Thursday in Ankara and Istanbul, where police used tear gas against demonstrators. 

A Turkish monitoring group, the We Will Stop Femicide Platform, reported 17 femicides and 20 suspicious deaths of women in May.

Turkey is the first and only country in the Council of Europe to have withdrawn from an international human rights convention, according to the global rights monitor Amnesty International.