V. Blinkevičiūtė calls on the Seimas not to be afraid of “imaginary baubles” and to ratify the Istanbul Convention

She spoke this way on Thursday after the Constitutional Court (KT) decided that this document of the Council of Europe does not contradict the Constitution.

“I would urge you to retaliate, see reality, not be afraid of someone else’s fake news and start doing real work,” the politician told Žinių radio on Friday.

She insisted that the Social Democratic faction would support the ratification of the convention.

“During the year 2023, about a fifth of registered crimes are due to domestic violence. What are the numbers? Every third woman has experienced sexual or physical violence in a close environment,” said V. Blinkevičiūtė.

However, the ruling of the Constitutional Court on the Istanbul Convention does not change the opinion of its opponents that the document does not need to be ratified. They say that such a verdict only strengthens the position of supporters of the Istanbul Convention, but does not affect opponents.

KT announced on Thursday that the Istanbul Convention does not contradict the Constitution, its main purpose is to protect women from all forms of violence, to prevent violence against women and violence in the intimate environment, to prosecute its perpetrators, and its concepts must be interpreted in this aspect.

The court, evaluating the concept of “social gender”, also found that the provisions of the convention do not negate the concept of the genders of a woman and a man and they “do not presuppose the possibility of choosing a gender other than the available biological sex”.

He also said that the Istanbul Convention does not oblige to establish concepts of marriage and family different from those in the Constitution, does not oblige to change the Lithuanian language so that it is gender neutral, and allows the states themselves to decide what programs should be carried out in schools about gender stereotypes and violence prevention.

The so-called Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence was adopted in 2011, Lithuania signed it on June 7, 2013.

Former President Dalia Grybauskaitė submitted the Istanbul Convention to the Seimas of Lithuania for ratification, but the process got stuck due to disagreements between politicians on some provisions of the document.