Prime Minister Robert Fico announced on February 22 that Slovakia will not ratify the Istanbul Convention as long as doubts persist about its accordance with the Slovak Constitution, particularly its paragraph about marriage as a bond between a man and a woman.
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Instead of ratifying the Istanbul Convention as a whole, Fico proposes to introduce national laws that would increase the protection of women from domestic violence.
“Any violence against women is unacceptable and has no place in our society,” Fico said as quoted by the Sme daily, and added that the protection of women’s rights is particularly important at a time when migrants make up more and more of the European population and bring with them “cultural and social patterns from their countries of origin”, including the perception of a woman as a submissive human being.