(Bratislava) – The representatives of all Christian Churches in Slovakia have issued a statement regarding the Istanbul Convention. It says that Christians believe that God created all people with equal dignity, and that various expressions of violence especially in the family environment are a negative phenomenon that needs to be fought. Yet the selection of the instruments to solve the situation is as important as the goal to reach. “We observe with concern the initiatives aimed at ratifying the controversial Council of Europe’s Convention known as the Istanbul Convention”, the statement reads, lamenting the fact that the Convention “sees the roots of domestic violence in the stereotypical roles of men and women, calling for the promotion of the so-called gender equality as a way to solve the problem to the detriment of the biological characteristics that define humans as female and male”. The Church representatives affirm that the topic of domestic violence requires a complex approach, as it may concern any vulnerable human being, not only women: “We support the protection of women from any form of violence, but we cannot agree with ideologies that present equality as sameness, going as far as to deny differences between men and women”. The Christian Churches call on the Government of the Slovak Republic to withdraw its support for the document and to look for other effective tools to address the problem of violence.