Campaign to inform about Istanbul Convention launched in Moldova

The residents of Moldova will better understand the Istanbul Convention and will learn that the negative attitude to this document that is disseminated in society is not appropriate. This will become possible owing to a project to inform about the Convention on Combating Domestic Violence, Elena Savina, head of the National Institute for Women of Moldova “Equality”, which implements this project.

Last October, Moldova ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (better known as the Istanbul Convention). “But a powerful campaign to discredit this convention was launched in Moldova and many politicians and media outlets misinform society, asserting that the Istanbul Convention legalizes the separation of children from parents, promotes the LGBT community, is a catastrophe for our traditional values. And many believe this as they do not know the provisions of the Istanbul Convention whose main direction is actually to fight violence against women and domestic violence,” stated Elena Savina.

Through the agency of leaflets, the information campaign through the media and seminars, the citizens of Moldova will find out what the Istanbul Convention contains and that domestic violence is prohibited. At seminars, police officers will learn the truth about the Istanbul Convention and in the future will be able to better implement its provisions, to counter misinformation about it. They now perceive this Convention in a better light. “Given that the police officers are often the first to whom the victims of domestic violence talk after the happenings, the state and future of the victim depend on their position and knowledge. Therefore, society tends to attach great importance to the training of police officers, primarily due to the worrisome fact that three in four women on average were subject to violence by their partners,” noted Elena Savina.

Among other goals of the campaign are to cultivate intolerance of violence among the young people of Gagauzia and to raise their awareness of the Istanbul Convention given the existing stereotypes. As a poll shows, 41.1% of men and 19.1% of women agree with the assertion that there are cases when the woman deserves to be beaten. “The existence of such stereotypes points to the necessity of actively developing intolerance of violence in the Republic of Moldova from an early age,” said Elena Savina.

The project is implemented by the National Institute for Women of Moldova “Equality” with support from the Embassy of Finland in Bucharest.