On Wednesday 18 October, we sent a letter to the Home Secretary to keep up the pressure for ratification. We did this ahead of the 1 November deadline they have to report by thanks to the Istanbul Convention Act we helped pass in April.

The letter, signed by the CEOs / Directors of 29 organisations, urges the Government to set out how it will be working with the devolved administrations to overcome all hurdles to ratification of the IC. Specifically it calls for the following:

● Records of previous meetings between the Government and devolved administrations to discuss the IC.
● A commitment to a meeting between relevant ministers across the administrations to ensure solving the issues of extra-territorial jurisdiction in relation to the IC is a priority.
● A commitment to future engagement on the issues with relevant stakeholders across all four nations.

We would welcome a meeting to discuss how we can work together to ensure that ratification of the Istanbul Convention - and the protection of women and girls from violence - remains a priority.’

You can read the letter below:

[pdfviewer width=”600px” height=”849px” beta=”true/false”]https://icchange.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/PUBLIC-NOV-2017-Home-Secretary-letter.pdf[/pdfviewer]