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<p>The UK signed the Istanbul Convention in 2012, signalling its strong commitment
to tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) and the Government has been working
hard to ratify the Istanbul Convention as soon as we possibly can.</p><p> </p><p>On
17 May, the Home Secretary made a Written Ministerial Statement to Parliament confirming
that the UK will commence the ratification process for the Istanbul Convention and
that we will be applying two reservations, including one on Article 59 which relates
to support for migrant victims of domestic abuse.</p><p> </p><p>The last annual progress
report on ratification of the Convention confirmed that the UK’s position on Article
59 is “under review” pending the results and evaluation of the Support for Migrant
Victims (SMV) scheme. This £1.5 million scheme was set up to address evidence gaps
regarding which cohorts of migrant victims are likely to be most in need of support,
the numbers involved and how well existing arrangements may address their needs. The
evaluation will conclude this summer, which will enable the Government to take evidence-based
decisions on how best to protect these victims in the long term, and we will then
consider what, if any, policy changes should be made. Therefore, we decided to apply
a reservation on Article 59, which nine other countries have also done, to enable
the UK to ratify as soon as possible. This decision is wholly without prejudice to
the conclusions relating to Article 59 and corresponding policy decisions reached
in the light of the evaluation of the SMV scheme, at which point we would be able
either to maintain the reservation or to withdraw it under Article 78(4) of the Convention.
We will do this as soon as possible, but I cannot provide a timescale.</p><p>We will
reply in due course to the letter from the IC Change coalition. As the role of the
Group of experts on action against violence against women and domestic violence is
to monitor the implementation of the Convention by those parties which have ratified
it, rather than to assess the terms under which a party decides to ratify the Convention,
the Government has not discussed the reservation on Article 59 with them.</p>
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