Ukraine has officially completed the ratification of the Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, known as the Istanbul Convention.
The ratification of this convention will strengthen the legal protection of women victims and provide them with access to justice. In addition, the document will help protect Ukrainian citizens who have suffered from violence not only in Ukraine, but also abroad.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center welcomes the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, because thousands of women around the world are indeed suffering because of the violation of their rights, discrimination and, in particular, because of violence. Unfortunately, Crimea is no exception.
Since the occupation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, hundreds of activists have been subjected to repression for their civic stance. At first it was only men. However, the Russian authorities did not stop and began to restrict the rights of the female half of the population of the peninsula.
In total, during the period of occupation of Crimea, 12 women died on the peninsula, including 3 Crimean Tatars. A terrible example of the use of violence against Crimean Tatar women by the so-called law enforcement officers was the death of 82-year-old Vedzhiie Kashka during an attempt to detain her.
The most vulnerable group are the wives and mothers of Crimean political prisoners. As a rule, religious, not too wealthy, large families. After the detention of the sole breadwinner, the responsibility for providing for the family falls on women. In this regard, they cannot pay enough attention to the upbringing of children, and are also deprived of the opportunity for full-fledged self-realization in society.
Indigenous lawyer Emine Avamileva was subjected to administrative arrest for 5 days in May this year, when she was performing her professional duties, defending another indigenous lawyer, who was also detained in the performance of her professional duties.
Traditionally, Crimean Tatar women actively participated in political life. Thus, due to the prohibition of the Mejlis and the actions of the occupation administration of the Russian Federation in Crimea, hundreds of women of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people are limited in their right to exercise their own representative functions, since staying in this capacity on the territory of the Crimean peninsula threatens to bring them to criminal liability as a member of an extremist organization.
After the full-scale invasion and occupation of new territories, women living in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions also became victims of persecution by the Russian occupation forces. 24 women became victims of enforced disappearance.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center demands from Russia to stop discrimination and violence against women and girls, as well as stop the illegal persecution of all residents of the occupied territories.
We would like to remind that the CTRC team systematically works in this direction. We are engaged in collecting and documenting violations of women's rights in the occupied Crimea, and since the beginning of the full-scale war of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, we have continued this activity in the new occupied territories.
For all the time of their work, the experts of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center have submitted dozens of applications, complaints, reports to relevant international human rights organizations and their structures on the situation of women in the temporarily occupied territories. We also held numerous thematic events at different levels.