Czech lawmakers reject international women’s rights treaty

PRAGUE (AP) — Czech lawmakers have voted against ratifying an international treaty on women’s rights.

Only 34 of the 71 Senators present in the upper house of the Czech Parliament late Wednesday voted in favor of the treaty known as the Istanbul Convention. The result was two votes short of the majority needed to pass.

After the vote, the lower house of Parliament will likely not deal with the treaty and the Czech Republic will be among those countries that have signed the document but not ratified it.

The Council of Europe adopted the document in 2011 in a bid to deter violence against women throughout Europe.

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The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, signed it in 2016.

The vote reflected a split between conservative and liberal lawmakers. Conservatives have argued the document challenges traditional roles for men and women in society and that its ratification in other countries didn’t help reduce violence against women there.

Several churches also opposed it.

The rejection came despite a last-minute appeal from President Petr Pavel who said the country should have ratified it sooner and that there was no reason to delay.

Slovakia is another European Union member state that rejected the treaty, doing so in 2020, while Bulgaria rejected it two years before that.