Authors

Discussion

The year 2021 has marked both Moldova's ratification of and Turkey's withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, a legal framework for prevention, prosecution and elimination of all forms of violence against women (with a strong accent on domestic violence) at European level. Seeing the Convention as an attempt to undermine the nation’s traditions, destroy the family and promote ‘Western’ sexual deviation rather than treating it as an instrument to address the root causes of gender-based violence and to bring about the necessary institutional changes, countries such as Russia, Ukraine or Belarus are still far behind accepting it and other countries such as Slovakia, Hungary or Poland are actively opposing its ratification or taking steps to withdraw.  

This presentation will seek to explore the dynamics of social change in the post-soviet / post-communist states of Eastern Europe in relation to the ratification of the Istanbul Convention. Using the concept of a culture war, it will discuss the tensions emerging between "traditional" and "progressive" views on family, gender and sexuality and the main driving forces of these divisions.