Zontas and the Council of Europe

How can Zontas help monitor the implementation of agreements that protect women’s rights?

The Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention is the world’s first comprehensive agreement aimed at preventing violence against women and domestic violence. The Council of Europe’s Anti-Trafficking Convention is an international agreement against human trafficking. Both agreements significantly promote women’s rights and help in the fight against violence against women.

The implementation of these agreements must be continuously monitored, including in Finland. The Council of Europe has established the GREVIO and GRETA systems to monitor these agreements. However, monitoring cannot work unless we, as ordinary citizens and members of organisations, observe the shortcomings in our society and report them to the monitoring systems so that their members can pay attention to these issues during their inspection visits.

Members of the ZI Council of Europe Committee Irma Ertman and Tuija Heikkilä

Read about their work and thoughts – Laura-Lotta Andersson interviewed them (Article in Finnish)