Legal advice
We present to you highlights of the activities of Women’s Resource Center for January-August 2022.
Since the beginning of the year, WRCA has been cooperating with the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), implementing the program “Support for resilient women’s civil society organizing in the context of multiple crises in Armenia.” Within the framework of the first year of the program, 8 CSOs were selected and provided with grants to support women and girls in Armenia, promote the agenda of gender equality in the post-war and post-pandemic situation. In order to develop the capacities of the selected CSOs, Women’s Resource Center selected 6 trainers, who conducted 17 training sessions for CSOs. The topics of the those sessions were: strategic planning, principles of strategic communication, work with the donor community, fundraising, social inclusion, effective management, information campaigns, work with the government, advocacy, gender analysis, gender-sensitive policies, etc. In November, a big conference is planned to take place to present the work done during the year and the results of this program. The program is continuous and in the future other CSOs will have the opportunity to get involved in it.
The Feminist safe space of the Women’s Resource Center is now open to everyone. From Monday to Friday, except Wednesdays, from 2 pm to 7 pm you can come to study, work, relax from everyday noise, read feminist literature, as well as meet people and socialize. Our address is: Saryan 24/5. We also organize various events in our feminist space: feminist discussions, training sessions, film screenings, and meetings with psychologists and with our lawyer. This year’s first feminist discussion was on ecofeminism. We discussed the types, influences, and examples of ecofeminism in the world with the speaker Arpine Galfayan. We also held forum theater meetings as a healing and self-help experience. Forum theater is a “theater of the oppressed”. It helps people to raise various conflicts, work with them, and find solutions for them with the help of others.
The three-day Women’s Rights training was held on May 20-22. During those three days, participants were introduced to the following topics: human rights, feminism, gender, gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health and rights, women, peace, and security. The goal of the training was to give women knowledge and tools for advocacy, after which they had the opportunity to apply for small grant programs. Currently, 4 projects resulting from the training are being implemented.
Within the framework of the “Women human rights defenders stepping up against gender-based violence in Armenia” program, we organized the presentation of the “Gender-based violence against women deprived of their freedom. the study of the issue in the Armenian context” research on June 17. The research was done by the Human Rights Research Center NGO. Representatives of a number of non-governmental organizations, experts, human rights defenders, government representatives, representatives of psychiatric organizations and penitentiary institutions participated in the event. Read the research below.
Click here to read the research
The WRCA Advocacy Team continues its work on the RA draft Law “On Making Amendments and Additions to the RA Labor Code” put up for public discussion by the RA Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs to make it more gender-sensitive. The work of the team in this direction includes the development of a proposal package (available here); presentation of the package to the decision-makers, particularly to the RA Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the Standing Committee on Labor and Social Affairs of the National Assembly; the call of around 50 civil society organization to the Government and the National Assembly to make the RA Labor Code more gender-sensitive. Parallelly, the team also conducted an online survey on sexual harassment in the workplace in Armenia, which will help make the ongoing work more factual, as well as raise women’s stories. Study data will be available in September.
Below you can find the first video of the informational campaign on sexual harassment at work carried out as part of these efforts.
Women’s Resource Center continues to provide free legal consultancy services for women in marital and family relations and labor rights. The consultancy is provided every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, both online and offline, by an experienced lawyer Narine Grigoryan. To get a consultation, you need to register in advance by calling 093 94 88 86. The service is also available on Viber. From January to August 2022, our lawyer provided free counseling to around 165 women and girls.
From January to August of this year, the psychologists of the center held 5 thematic meetings on the following topics: “Anger, its influence and significance in our lives”, “Anxiety and fears”, “What are my limits?”, a 2-part thematic meeting on “Menopause” – medical and psychological features of menopause in a woman’s life. In general, 27 women participated in these meetings. During the mentioned period, 4 courses of personal growth through art therapy took place. The number of meetings with each group was from 6 to 8, and the number of participants was 31. In addition, the psychologists of the center provide individual psychological counseling, particularly emphasizing the wellbeing of women human rights defenders and activists.
On July 13, we celebrated the 19th anniversary of the foundation of the Women’s Resource Center. The event was attended by our friends who have supported us on our way during all these years. Together we watched the film dedicated to the 18th anniversary of the center and filmed last year, which tells about the path of the WRCA. You can watch the film below.
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