In 2018 GREVIO, the Council of Europe Group of Experts on Violence Against Women, started monitoring the application of the Istanbul Convention - the Council of Europe Convention on Domestic Violence and Gender-Based Violence - at 5 years since its ratification. The Istanbul Convention was ratified in 2013 and entered into force the following year.
This monitoring process provides - for civil society organizations - the possibility of presenting a shadow report, or an analysis of the application of the Istanbul Convention that acts as a counterweight to the report requested by GREVIO from the government.
On 29 October 2018, the Report of women's associations on the implementation of the Istanbul Convention in Italy.
Over 30 associations and experts working on the issues of the Istanbul Convention worked on the Shadow Report, coordinated by the lawyers of D.i.Re Elena Biaggioni and Marcella Pirrone of D.i.Re. The report highlights the critical issues encountered in the field by those who have been working for over 30 years, such as anti-violence centers D.i.Re, to prevent and combat violence against women, and is a useful advocacy tool to push institutions to adopt solutions to address the shortcomings in the implementation of the Istanbul Convention.
The document follows the articles of the Istanbul Convention and denotes in particular:
- a strongly Italian cultural context permeated with sexist prejudices and stereotypes with a particularly serious impact in the field of justice;
- la distance between the rules adopted and declaim and their application;
- the multiple discrimination, including obstacles of an institutional nature, which pay off it is particularly difficult for migrant women seeking asylum and refugees to escape from violence;
- la non-homogeneity - at a territorial level - of rules and funding for actions / services in contrast to violence against women, starting with support for anti-violence centers and shelters
- and therefore the consequent lack of protection of the rights of victims of violence
The Shadow Report also proposes ideas and recommendations to solve the identified criticalities.
Download here the Shadow Report for GREVIO in Italian.
Download here the Shadow Report for the Grevio in English.
The report was presented to the press on February 26, 2019, at the Foreign Press Association in Rome. Here are the details of the presentation and a little press review.
In view of the monitoring mission of the GREVIO experts, D.i.Re has raised over a hundred of adhesions to the Shadow Report by other associations, NGOs and structured movements. A the letter of adhesion was also signed by about one hundred experts from the university and research world.