Mariam Zadoyan, advocate on women’s rights issues of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, participated in the “Dialogue on the Issues of the Protection of Labor Rights in Armenia: Challenges and Solutions” organized by the Oxygen Foundation and EPD which took place in Paris Hall at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Yerevan.
The purpose of the meeting was to engage in a dialogue on the key problems in the field of the protection of labor rights and legislative reforms aimed at overcoming them, with the responsible state structures and stakeholders. The discussion was held within the framework of the “Inspired + Armenia” program. The MPs Luiza Sargsyan and Shake Isayan, representatives of the RA State Health Inspectorate, the Human Rights Defender’s Institute, independent experts and others attended the meeting.
In the course of the meeting, Mariam Zadoyan spoke about the practice of frequently abusing the women’s labor rights, the problem of sexual harassment at workplace. According to her, despite the fact that the RA Draft Law “On Making Amendments and Addenda to the Labor Code of the Republic of Armenia” recommends that this rule is complemented and defined what violence is “the action against their physical and (or) mental and / or sexual immunity or threat thereof,” nevertheless, the latter is defined as a merely a principle and only of a declarative character and does not envisage effective mechanisms for its application. In particular, According to the Concluding Observations of the 5th and 6th Annual Reports of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, it is proposed to develop a secret and secure system of complaints on gender discrimination and sexual harassment at workplace and to ensure that victims have effective access to remedial measures; to include in the next periodic report the number of registered cases of harassment, investigations, prosecutions and the verdicts against the offenders.”
“Inspired +” is a European Union-funded project implemented in 9 countries worldwide using the European Union’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP +) including Armenia, and aims to promote a participatory process to support the efforts of countries in the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP +) effective implementation of the mandatory commitments set out in the International Conventions relating to membership. In Armenia, the project is being implemented by the Oxhegen Foundation in cooperation with EPD, the Club of Madrid (CdM) and the Netherlands Multi-Party Democracy Institute (NIMD).
Photos from Oxygen’s FB website
