A team of international experts on combating violence against women has arrived in Latvia 0 15

As reported to LETA by Ilze Berzina, senior expert of the Department of Child and Family Policy of the Ministry of Welfare, visits by GREVIO experts to member states are a regular monitoring mechanism for human rights compliance.

Such visits are also organized under other international human rights monitoring mechanisms of the Council of Europe (CoE), such as ECRI (European Commission against Racism and Intolerance) and CPT (Committee for the Prevention of Torture), which regularly visit Latvia.

During such visits, their agenda is generally not public, explained the representative of the Ministry of Welfare.

Representatives of the GREVIO expert group will meet with representatives of the Ministry of the Interior, the State Police, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Culture, and other government institutions, as well as hold individual meetings with representatives of non-governmental organizations and the Office of the Ombudsman.

GREVIO prepares and publishes reports assessing the legal acts and other measures taken by EU member states to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Istanbul Convention. In cases where measures are needed to prevent serious, widespread, or persistent patterns of violence covered by the Convention, GREVIO may initiate a special investigation procedure. GREVIO may also issue general recommendations on topics and concepts of the convention.

The monitoring procedure for the initial assessment in Latvia provides for a comprehensive review of the level of implementation of almost all provisions of the convention.

As reported, with the votes of the opposition and the Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS), a law was passed in the Saeima last week on Latvia's withdrawal from the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, or the so-called Istanbul Convention.