On 12 April, the first working meeting on the topic “Women in Labour Market – Problems and Solutions” within the framework of the NA-CSO cooperation platform was held at the Grand Hotel in Yerevan. Ms Mariam Zadoyan, the lawyer-expert at the Armenian Lawyers’ Association attended the meeting as well.
The meeting was organized by the OxYGen Foundation with the support of the National Democracy Institute.
Within the framework of this open platform, the document “Women’s Agenda for Development” was adopted and the first meeting referred to the following issue: “The Inefficient use of Women’s Potential, the Discrimination against Women in the Labour Market, and the Lack of coordinated Employment and Family Responsibilities.”
The objective of the meeting was the mapping of sectoral reform policy recommendations, to formulate women’s involvement in the labour market, initiate narrow sectoral workshops as needed, and formulate legislative initiatives to address policy-related issues.
About three dozen CSO representatives, representatives of the international organization, MPs, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Zhanna Andreasyan were present at the initiative.
During an effective discussion, the ALA representative raised a number of sectoral issues that were mapped and presented to the relevant authorities earlier, but which have not yet been resolved. These include the absence of sexual harassment regulation and reporting mechanisms in the workplace, the absence of a body dealing with the protection of infringed rights of workers, including the working women, the lack of official statistics on labour discrimination, the definition of additional labour guarantees for pregnant women, and the adoption of additional safeguards in the case of a newborn child’s care, including providing a paid leave for a spouse (husband), an equal salary gap between men and women, and proposed a number of legislative amendments aimed at addressing the issues that arise from the international commitments and international best practices in this area
In addition, Mariam Zadoyan expressed concern over the 2019-2023 Strategy and Action Plan for Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities for Men and Women in Armenia. In particular, the outcome indicators of almost 68 percent of the measures envisaged therein are almost incomplete, with respect to women’s labour and economic rights. In this regard, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Zhanna Andreasyan noted that another version of the draft strategy is being worked out.
Photos from Facebook page of OxYGen Foundation
