Violence against women is still a serious and acute problem in Lithuania, with one in three women experiencing domestic violence in her lifetime, the centre told a press conference held at ELTA on Friday.
“On International Women’s Day, we would like to publicly ask all presidential candidates – do they support the ratification of the Istanbul Convention in Lithuania? We address this question in particular to the current President Gitanas Nausėda, who has so far failed to state his position on the ratification of the Istanbul Convention and who has not used his moral authority for the ratification of the Istanbul Convention in the five years of his term,” said Jūratė Juškaitė, head of the Lithuanian Human Rights Centre.
She called on the candidates to respond to the question about the treaty instead of “flooding social media with tulips” today.
The European Institute for Gender Equality has estimated that violence against women costs Lithuania around EUR 2.3 billion a year, Juškaitė noted.
“This is around EUR 100 million more than the total defence spending earmarked in this year’s state budget," Juškaitė stated.
“If a beaten woman loses her ability to work, that means that the state is paying for health care services. In addition, the police, prosecutors, judges and the entire support system are also costing money,” she added.
Dovilė Masalskienė, programme manager of the Women’s Information Centre, said the problem of violence against women in Lithuania is still being addressed in a fragmented way, without addressing its root causes. The Istanbul Convention offers a systematic solution to this problem, according to her.
“The Istanbul Convention is a systemic tool (&). It proposes safeguards, training and monitoring the whole system to improve it. By transferring only parts of it, and only the parts that will not cause a stir in society, we are losing the systemic nature of the Convention,” Masalskienė spoke.
Lithuania signed the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) in June 2013, but the Seimas has not ratified the treaty yet.