The Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence is a Council of Europe convention for violence against women and against domestic violence opened for signature on May 11, 2011. As of November 15 it has been signed by 17 countries.[1]
During the latter stage of drafting of the convention, UK, Italy, Russia and the Holy See have proposed several amendments to limit the requirements provided by the Convention. These amendments have been criticized by Amnesty International.[2]
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At the Preamble, European Convention on Human Rights, European Social Charter and Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings as well as international human rights treaties by United Nations and Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court are recalled. And at Article 2, this Convention shall apply in time of peace and also in situations of armed conflicts against violence against women and domestic violence. And Article 3 provides their definitions stating: "violence against women" is understood as a violence of human rights and a form of discrimination against women and shall mean all acts of gender-based violation that result in, or are likely to result in physical, sexual, psychological, or economic harm or suffering to women including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life, and "domestic violence" shall mean all acts of physical, sexual, psychological or economic violence that occur with the family or domestic unit or between former or current spouses or partners, whether or not the perpetrator shares or has shared the same residence with the victim.
And the Article 4 prohibits all kind of discrimination stating: The implementation of the provisions of this Convention by the Parties, in particular measure to protect the rights of victims, shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, gender, race, colour, language political or other opinion, national or social origine, association with a national minority, property, birth, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, state of health, disability, marial states, migrant or refugee status, or other status.