Do we know what we are debating in the Istanbul Convention?

"Following Koç Holding, the Sabancı Foundation and Borusan Holding, important actors of the TÜSİAD wing, also issued messages of support for the Istanbul Convention and called for it to be put into force. The statements stressed that the Istanbul Convention must be preserved and applied effectively and resolutely." Thus, in the debate on the Istanbul Convention that has been heating up for some time, the cast of the opposing side has been completed too. Now all preparations are complete for a fierce struggle.

Judging by the statements of these players who have joined the cast, late as it may be, the sole purpose of the Istanbul Convention is to prevent violence against women.

Yet the rise of violence against women in Turkey and the Convention's entry into force run almost in parallel. The language and discourse that dominate the Convention are in any case adapted to our laws or to our judicial and police practices far beyond what is needed. Tolerance for violence against women has fallen even below zero. Members of the judiciary, in order to take no risk at all in the face of the slightest possibility of domestic violence, immediately impose a restraining order on the man. Because the woman's statement is taken as the basis both at the police station and in the courts, an irreparable, irreversible public authority steps in between families. By one estimate, the number of husbands who have received restraining orders has now reached 250 thousand.

Can you imagine what this means for the country? 250 thousand husbands means 250 thousand families, with their wives and children. The spouses, friends and relatives of these families are affected by this domestic dispute. This also means an explosion in the number of domestic violence cases.

Was there not this much domestic violence in the past, or was it simply not recorded? What is the way to find out? Undoubtedly the way to understand this begins with establishing, coolly and without ideologizing the matter, the causal relations among events in the most objective manner. When, already at the stage of establishing the facts, everyone sets about comforting themselves and tries to load the matter onto the scapegoat of their own sin, neither domestic violence nor violence against women can be stopped; we merely go on living our anger accumulated because of domestic violence as a violence reflected onto the whole society.

From the standpoint of causal relation, the parallelism between the effectiveness of the Istanbul Convention and the rise in the rate of violence against women appears to be the most objective datum we can record. That is, contrary to what is supposed, the Convention does not prevent domestic violence at all, cannot prevent it. On the contrary, even if we cannot at first glance state the causal relation definitively,

we can see that as the effectiveness of this Convention has increased, violence against women has increased as well.

Despite this, the matter has been mythologized to such a degree over the roles attributed to the Convention that it is supposed that once the Convention is abolished no mechanism will remain that could prevent domestic violence and protect women. The psychological effect of sensational cases is drawn to the side of the Convention, and the mythical discourse is deepened still further. What, for instance, is the Convention's role in the Pınar Gültekin case? Was the animal who murdered her in a state of savage, murderous emotions emboldened by the possibility of the Convention's abolition? According to these Convention-minded smart operators, it seems so. A typical cunning way of mocking human reason.

On the other hand, from the standpoint of those who oppose the Convention, is the Convention's role in the rise of divorces really as great as claimed? Here too we have to say that a greater sociological power than is supposed is being attributed to the Convention. The rise in divorces and the rapid change of roles within the family cannot of course be tied to the Convention. Turkey has a rapidly changing sociology. The far faster participation of women in working life than before is not a result produced by the Convention. And this participation is rapidly changing the roles of woman and man in the family and in society. The conservative people who vehemently oppose the Convention must answer this question sincerely: Can they bring themselves to take for their own sons a bride who has finished university but does not work? Or why do fathers of girls now want their daughters to study a profession and have a profession?

The equal participation of woman and man in working life inevitably changes all the balances within the family.

Let it not be misunderstood, I am not saying that this is bad or good. As things stand, there is a serious gap between our sociological reality and our family values. What we call family values are not matters of metaphysical constants. We have broken away from some traditions but have not yet been able to create for ourselves new traditions and values suited to those traditions.

In today's world, it is not the Istanbul Convention that changes the roles of woman and man. Getting angry at it on that account may perhaps comfort us, but even if the Convention is abolished, many of our problems will not be solved. The same holds for those who defend the Convention: even if the Convention is applied to the very end, it offers no remedy for violence against women; we have seen it. Unless, that is, violence against women in the defense of the Istanbul Convention forms a shield for the text's real intention, the legitimization, normalization and securing of legal grounds for homosexuality through the discourse of gender roles. Let those who defend the Convention defend it manfully from this ground, and let those who oppose it oppose it from this ground. What each says will be better understood.

Then on the remaining subjects we will discuss more directly from the viewpoints of sociology, anthropology, psychology, psychiatry, theology and law.