Uproar over UK reservation about Istanbul Convention

In 2015, Phoenix (not her real name) from Brazil met a British man through her family. The man was living in England. She was living in Brazil.

In 2016, the two started dating and the following year, they got engaged in London. In 2018, Phoenix arrived in England with her eldest son, who had just turned five.

She was expectant with so many dreams and happy that she would finally be by the side of the person she loved. However, all her dreams, plans and expectations soon became a sad and endless nightmare.

What was supposed to be normal turned out to be completely inhuman and cruel. Phoenix and her fiancé never lived together after she arrived and their marriage was never consolidated. They only met once a month. She was living with six people. She shared a room and bed with her son.

Three months after her arrival in London, the pill failed and she was expecting a baby. It was the end of the world for her, being in a foreign country, expectant and abandoned by her lover. Her world had just collapsed, or so it seemed.

Each passing day was worse than the previous one. He came home drunk in the late hours and his behaviour towards her became more and more violent.

Being an immigrant, she felt trapped and helpless, having no job and money. Worse still, she could not speak English. It took the intervention of the Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS) to help her pick up the piece and get back on her feet.

Phoenix’s predicament mirrors that of many other immigrant women in the UK who continue to face diverse challenges in a country far from their homes.

Ratification

It is for this reason that the announcement by the UK government that it is going to ratify the Istanbul Convention with some reservations has raised a storm. The convention, which was signed on May 11, 2011, recognises violence against women as violation of human rights.

It condemns all forms of violence against women and describes this violence as an expression of a historical imbalance of power between women and men.

Rights groups and gender activists globally are up in arms by the decision of the UK government to reserve article 59 of the convention, which requires states to grant residence to survivors whose immigration status is due to an abusive partner.

The UK government said the article is pending the conclusion and evaluation of a short-term pilot of the Support for Migrant Victims scheme.

Protests

More than 80 organisations have written to Home Secretary Priti Patel, urging the UK to ratify the convention without any reservation. They argue that the reservation, which denies migrant women survivors lifesaving support, would be disastrous for them.

They also hold the reservation is in direct opposition to the spirit of the convention, which is firmly based on the principles of equality and non-discrimination.

“We are extremely concerned at the decision to make a reservation on Article 59, which requires member states to grant residence to victims whose immigration status depends on an abusive partner,” reads the petition.

The organisations, in a petition, said a wealth of existing evidence illustrate the need for article 59 to provide vital support for migrant women experiencing violence. They added the evidence, provided by numerous specialists “led by and for” Black and minority women’s organisations, during the passage of the Domestic Abuse Act, clearly established the gap in support for migrant victims of domestic abuse whose residency was connected with their abuser and had no recourse to public funds.

“Despite this, the UK government failed to secure equal protection and support for migrant women through this legislation, and it is failing to do so again through its approach to ratification,” the rights groups added.

The organisations include the End Violence Against Women Coalition, Step Up Migrant, Women Campaign, White Ribbon UK, Associated Country Women of the World, Womankind Worldwide, Latin American Women's Rights Service, Women for Refugee Women and National Board of Catholic Women(NBCW) England and Wales.

Widespread violence

Violence against women and girls is a serious and widespread issue across the UK. Gender experts and activists, therefore, view the Istanbul Convention, commended by UN Women and widely acknowledged as the ‘gold standard’ approach, to provide the most comprehensive survivor-centred roadmap for addressing the epidemic

Women are over two-thirds (68 per cent) of migrants on family and dependent visas, with 20 per cent of migrant women in the UK on work visas. Over a third (36 per cent) of migrant women are on student visas and they outnumber male counterparts.

In 2019, about 25 per cent of all asylum applications were made by women, of the 3.4 million EU nationals who live in the UK, half of whom are women. Many migrant women depend on partners for income as they lack recourse to public funds and face labour market barriers and restricted access to free childcare.

The Istanbul Convention, also known as the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, is legally binding and sets out minimum standards that European countries should have in their legislation.

Although the UK signed the convention in 2012, the government has only just announced that it plans to ratify it by the end of July, which means that more than 10 years on, the UK remains one of the few countries in Europe to have failed to do so. Countries that have ratified and implemented the convention include France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Sweden.

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