International treaties also give certain leverage to civic actors and women’s movement in Turkey in their efforts to overcome entrenched resistance to policy and practice changes. Since the Convention’s inception, women’s organisations in Turkey have been actively struggling for effective implementation and pushing public authorities to adopt women-friendly policies by making direct references to the Convention’s provisions.

Nine years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, fundamental issues remain unresolved. Many domestic critics saw the Olympics as a ploy to distract from the nuclear disaster. Should a country with an ongoing nuclear disaster be hosting these games?

Viktor Orbán has been successfully playing a big power game in the last decade, punching far above his weight. But his image as a negative hero in the Western World has clearly backfired now, with Orbán using the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to complete his authoritarian regime. Orbán’s moves are not purely the domestic political problems of Hungary – an authoritarian state within the EU could be deadly dangerous for the entire project. Germany has a very important role to play in the current situation. 

The corona pandemic has exposed and further exacerbated various built-in inequalities and unsustainable structures of how we organize the economy and social life globally, from seasonal agricultural work to elderly care – and this is also true for gender relations in Hungary.