Between progress and pushback: Latvians rally to defend women’s rights

18 November, 2025

Latvia is facing growing divisions over a political push to withdraw from the main international treaty to combat violence against women, as outlined in a new policy brief by Pamela Campa (SITE) and Kata Fredheim (SSE Riga). The brief explains how a debate over the word “gender” escalated into mass protests, political fractures, and concerns about Latvia’s international standing. Meanwhile, data show that violence against women in Latvia is a serious concern and societal support for legislation to combat it is high.

On September 25, 2025, the Latvian Parliament voted to begin the process of withdrawing Latvia from the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention). This vote has been met with growing mass protests. We provide some background to understand the political and societal movements that underlie these events. Survey data shows that (a) violence against women is prevalent in Latvia and (b) there is public support for legislation aimed at combating a major expression of gender-based violence, such as intimate partner violence. However, the Latvian public appears polarized on perceptions about women’s and men’s roles in society, which might conflict with the Convention’s call for States to combat gender stereotypes. The vote’s significance in terms of Latvia’s geopolitical positioning between the EU and Russia also contributes to making the Convention a polarizing issue.

Key points from the FREE Network Policy Brief

Latvia’s political crisis around the Istanbul Convention is driven less by disagreement on preventing violence and more by resistance to the treaty’s definition of gender as socially constructed, a concept that many conservative political actors frame as conflicting with Latvian cultural values.
Survey data show that gender-based and domestic violence remain severe problems in Latvia, with one quarter of women having experienced physical or sexual violence and the country reporting the EU’s highest femicide rate in 2022 Public support for legislation of intimate partner violence is high - yet public understanding of psychological forms of violence remains limited.
The withdrawal debate has become intertwined with Latvia’s geopolitical positioning, as Russian-language media amplify narratives about “gender ideology,” while EU and Nordic partners warn that leaving the treaty would isolate Latvia and undermine decades of progress on human rights.

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Meet the authors

Pamela Campa: Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE) – Stockholm School of Economics (SSE); Research Affiliate at CEPR (Labor, Public and Political Economy); Mistra Center for Sustainable Markets (MISUM); Dondena Gender Initiative; invited researcher at J-PAL Europe; formerly Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary; PhD from IIES, Stockholm University.
Kata Fredheim: Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga); Executive Vice President of Partnership and Strategy; Associate Professor in Economics and Business at SSE Riga; Research Fellow at BICEPS; social anthropologist specializing in migration, internationalization, and higher education; director of the Women in Leadership executive course.