Croatian Parliament endorses ratification of Istanbul Convention

ZAGREB, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The Croatian Parliament ratified the Istanbul Convention on Friday, with a majority of 110 votes, while two were absent and 30 votes were against.

The ratification came after several months of fierce political clashes between pro-European forces and conservative circles, claiming that ratification would introduce a "gender ideology". Against the ratification were 14 representatives of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).

HDZ President and Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced that there would be no sanctions against parliamentary representatives who did not respect the party's top decision to support the convention. All the Left Party members, who were in opposition, primarily the Social Democratic Party of Croatia, voted for ratification.

Plenkovic said on Friday that the essence of the convention is to prevent violence against women and families, and that between 2013 and 2017 there were 195 murders in Croatia, and the number of killed women was 91.

Croatia signed the Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, an international treaty signed by the Council of Europe on May 11, 2011 in Istanbul, but had not yet ratified it. In the meantime, Croatian governments changed, which has prevented ratification, and one of the election promises of the HDZ, which in the coalition with the other parties formed a government in October 2016, was the acceptance of the Istanbul Convention and its ratification in parliament.

Croatia has been a full member of the Council of Europe since November 1996.

By January, the convention had been ratified by 24 countries. European countries that have not ratified the convention include Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Britain and Moldova. Enditem