On
June 14, the board meeting of the Public Council on Women's Rights adjunct to
the Human Rights Defender was held in Aragatsotn province.
Welcoming
the participants, Defender Ms. Anahit Manasyan mentioned that this event is a
good opportunity to emphasize the importance of promoting and protecting
women's rights and talk about joint efforts in that direction. Moreover, the
Defender highlighted the importance of the choice of venue for the board
meeting from the point of view that it is necessary to pay serious attention to
addressing and solving issues in the province. The Defender attaches special
importance to that fact.
“The tasks of the Public Council are to
support the Defender in ensuring women's legal equality, activating political
participation, preventing violence against women and gender-based violence,
contributing to increasing the efficiency of the protection of women's rights,
identifying issues and gaps by proposing legislative solutions. Within the
framework of the activities, a number of key issues have already been discussed
and the basis for efficient cooperation has been created,"-said the Defender
in the opening speech.
Deputy
Minister of Internal Affairs, Ms. Arpine Sargsyan, Governor of Aragatsotn
province, Mr. Sergey Movsisyan and Head of the UNFPA Armenia Office, Ms.
Tsovinar Harutyunyan also delivered a greeting speech at the event, emphasizing
the role of the Council in women's legal and economic empowerment, ensuring
equality of rights, activation of political participation, prevention of
violence against women and gender-based violence.
Panel
discussions were held within the board meeting: the activities followed by the
inaugural session were summarized, the problems reported by the communities
were presented, and the plan and actions for the coming year on raising and
addressing issues related to the reproductive health of women deprived of their
liberty in penitentiary institutions were discussed.
Non-governmental
organizations involved in the Council raised a number of issues, for example,
sexual harassment, the spread of hate speech, stereotyped approaches to the
distribution of roles in society, and discrimination.
Summing
up the event, Ms. Anahit Manasyan expressed gratitude to the participants for
their active involvement and noted that this platform should be used to discuss
the visible issues, find solutions and present them to the state bodies in the
right way.
The
board meeting of the Public Council on Women's Rights adjunct to the Human
Rights Defender was held with the support of “Accountable Institutions and
Human Rights Protection in Armenia” Project funded by the EU and implemented
jointly by UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA, and OSCE.
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