Poland to withdraw from European treaty aimed at preventing violence towards women

By Mark Armstrong

Poland's right-wing government says it will withdraw from a European treaty aimed at preventing violence against women.

The Istanbul Convention is the world's first binding instrument to prevent violence against women but the Polish Justice Minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, described the text as "harmful" because it requires that schools teach children about gender from a sociological point of view.

Ziobro said over the weekend that on Monday he will begin preparing the formal process to withdraw from the treaty.

"This ideological element is linked to the imperative to change education in schools and outside of school programs, in terms of learning, attitudes, convictions of the young Polish generation of students to make, in our opinion, the false assumption that biological sex is archaic, and in fact everything comes down to the socio-cultural gender." Read more via Euronews/AFP