The BaBe Association, as an organization for the protection of human rights, considers it its moral and social obligation to respond to the forum organized by the "Truth about Istanbul" initiative, which presented deliberate and malicious misinterpretations of the spirit of the Istanbul Convention and spoke about women in an extremely degrading manner.
Advisor to the Minister of Culture Nina Obuljen Koržinek and leader of the ultra-conservative HRAST party Ladislav Ilčić, in his repeated attempts to prevent the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, continues his series of misogynistic and sexist statements. Reflecting on the current context in which we are recording an increase in the murder of women by intimate partners, it is unacceptable to hinder the adoption of mechanisms that would protect women and their lives. It is unacceptable that a person who opposes the ratification of a document aimed at combating all forms of violence and discrimination against women is even appointed as an advisor in the Ministry. Let us not forget that Ilčić was already an advisor to Davor Ivo Stier in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and after last year's Night March for March 8, which demanded his resignation, he resigned from his post.
Ilčić has been practicing the rhetoric that women are 'limited' and 'not rational unlike men' for years. His reduction of women solely to biology and his valuing of women only through their reproductive role speaks of a truly terrifying and deeply rooted patriarchy in his agenda. Given Ilčić's previous aspirations, which have always been limited to restricting the rights of others and those who are different under the guise of protecting the family, this is yet another attempt to discredit women as intelligent, capable, and independent, and to move them from the public sphere to the private sphere, where they would be exclusively mothers, wives, and caregivers. As always, Ilčić is trying to set this society back a century.
We call on Minister Obuljen Koržinek to cancel her cooperation with her advisor, and on you to reject the deliberate and malicious misinterpretations of the spirit of this convention and not fall for false interpretations and statements by those who do not care about the protection of women, children and families from violence!
