For nearly 15 years, Feride Acar contributed to the violence against women policy agenda of the Council of Europe sharing freely of her knowledge, academic background, dedication and experience on the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
From promoting the idea of a strong violence against women convention as a member of the Council of Europe Task Force to Combat Violence against Women, including Domestic Violence (2005-2008), to negotiating the Istanbul Convention as the Turkish Delegate (2009-2011), and later as GREVIO’s first president, she worked to develop and institutionalise path-breaking European standards to combat violence against women. Bringing her feminist conviction and deep knowledge of women’s rights globally and regionally to the work of the Council of Europe Group of Experts on Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO), she was instrumental in breathing life into the Istanbul Convention.
A rather unknown treaty at the beginning of her presidency in 2015, the Istanbul Convention made headlines by the end of it. Feride Acar worked to ensure that GREVIO adopts strong and well-functioning working methods. Under her leadership, GREVIO’s monitoring work has come to result in a deeper understanding of the aims and principles of the Istanbul Convention among government stakeholders and NGOs alike.
In her efforts, she always tried to make the link between United Nations and Council of Europe norms and processes. Her experience on the UN CEDAW Committee enabled a level of cross-fertilisation between CEDAW and GREVIO that both still benefit from, most notably because of her role in drafting General Recommendation No.35 updating CEDAW General Recommendation No.19 on violence against women.
The project “75 women in 75 years of Council of Europe history” is organised by the Delegation of the European Union to the Council of Europe with the Council of Europe and the Permanent Representations of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
