On 10 December, the first session of the Council on Women’s Issues created by the decision of the RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan took place. Representatives of state bodies and NGOs were present at the meeting. The Council was chaired by RA Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan, who delivered a welcoming speech and noted that women have great human capital potential, which is not realized for many objective and subjective reasons and that the state should provide the conditions necessary for women to realize their human capital through broad public cooperation.
As we had reported earlier, the Armenian Lawyers’ Association (ALA) is also a member of the Council on Women’s Issues. Lusine Nalbandyan, a legal expert at ALA, who attended the Council meeting, noted that the Association had always attached importance to issues related to the protection of women. In her speech she presented the report “Perspectives for Strengthening the Mechanisms for the Protection of Women’s Rights in Armenia” published by the organization, prepared in the framework of the EU-funded “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project. In particular she highlighted the fact that the report addresses issues of women’s rights protection in economic, labor, health (reproductive health), from the aspect of family and political rights. She mentioned: “The report has made concrete recommendations on all four sectoral issues and I believe that the report should be taken as a basis for the further work of the Council. For example, it has been mentioned that advocacy services for women subjected to harassment and violence are very difficult to access, in this context it is worth noting the recommendation in the Report on provision of free services by the Public Defender to women subjected to violence. From the point of view of protection of labor rights, it is necessary to envisage adoption of a legislative package which will extend the scope of functions and powers of the RA Health and Labor Inspectorate, as it is known that this body has no leverages for restoring violated rights in the workplace.”
During the meeting it was decided that the electronic version of the questions would be put to the vote and the members would participate on the voting on this or that issue.
Photo from gov.am.