Latvia could become the first EU country to withdraw from a landmark international treaty to combat domestic abuse and violence against women following a parliamentary vote Thursday.
Lawmakers voted by a margin of 56 to 32, with two abstentions, to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention — a Council of Europe treaty intended to standardize support for women who are victims of violence — just a year after it came into force.
“It’s a shameful decision for the parliament,” Andris Šuvajevs, parliamentary group leader for the center-left Progressive Party, told POLITICO shortly after the vote, which took place after an intense 14-hour debate.
The legislation to withdraw from the treaty was introduced by a right-wing opposition party, Latvia First, but passed with support from one of the three parties in the ruling coalition. The centrist Union of Greens and Farmers diverged from the party of Prime Minister Evika Siliņa to help push the bill through.
Ingūna Millere, a representative of Latvia First, told POLITICO in a written comment that the Istanbul Convention was a “product of radical feminism based on the ideology of ‘gender’” and that Latvia’s ratification of the treaty was “political marketing that has nothing to do with the fight against violence.”
The push to withdraw from the convention has been sharply criticized by human rights groups, which warned that it would roll back women’s rights in Latvia. A day before the vote, around 5,000 people demonstrated outside the parliament, carrying signs reading “Hands off the Istanbul Convention” and “Latvia is not Russia.”
Tamar Dekanosidze, the Eurasia regional representative for women’s rights NGO Equality Now, said the bill attempted to reframe gender equality initiatives as pushing an “LGBTQ agenda,” adopting a Kremlin-style narrative that allows politicians to portray themselves as defenders of “national values” ahead of elections.
“This would mean that, in terms of values, legal systems and governance, Latvia would be more aligned with Russia than with the European Union and Western countries,” she said, adding that this “directly serves Russia’s interests in the country.”
Latvia’s withdrawal would require the support of President Edgars Rinkēvičs, who said before the vote that he would review the law and announce his decision within 10 days. Latvia would be only the second country to quit the convention following Turkey’s exit in 2021.
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