Legal advice
On March 7, on the eve of the International Women’s Day, “Women’s Resource Center” NGO organized a round table discussion called “Women’s Rights in the Context of Multiple Crises: Challenges and Opportunities.”
The purpose of the meeting was to create a platform for dialogue between the state and civil society representatives, to discuss the challenges of women’s rights in the post-war period, as well as what to do together in terms of global security issues. Co-founder of the organization Lara Aharonian, RA Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Tatevik Stepanyan and representative of the Swedish Embassy in RA Gayane Mamikonyan made opening remarks at the meeting.
The meeting was divided into two parts, in the first part of which was the presentations of implemented programs and challenges.
RA Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Tatevik Stepanyan presented the government’s actions in the field of gender equality and protection of women’s rights, in particular, the start of work on the development of a new Gender equality strategy for 2024, demographic policy, employment programs.
Gohar Shahnazaryan, co-founder of the Women’s Fund Armenia, presented the results of the research conducted by the Fund related to the needs of organizations and initiatives operating in the field of women’s rights in the post-war period, the scarcity of funds directed to gender issues, and the impact of anti-gender movements.
Anna Hovhannisyan, Advocacy Team Coordinator of the Women’s Resource Center, presented some of the issues of concern within the framework of the “Women, Peace and Security” agenda in Armenia, including women’s security concerns, which the organization identified both during the war and post-war period, working with various women’s groups.
In this part of the meeting, Anush Poghosyan, Executive Director of the Women’s Resource Center, presented the challenges of women’s sexual and reproductive rights, particularly acute after the war.
Member of the National Assembly Zaruhi Batoyan presented the initiatives implemented by the legislative body (the Parliament) in the field of women’s rights, in particular, the initiatives aimed at improving the Law on Domestic Violence, the inclusion of mechanisms establishing the prohibition of sexual harassment in the RA Labor Code, the legislative change related to women with disabilities. Mrs. Batoyan also pointed out the willingness of the state to cooperate with representatives of civil society and the tools to form an effective dialogue.
Representatives of various government departments, including representatives of the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, responded to the questions raised by the main speakers.
The questions raised by the keynote speakers were followed by the presentation of important questions and suggestions by the participants, which were summarized by the roundtable coordinator, co-founder of the Women’s Resource Center, Lara Aharonian.
It was also decided to regularly organize consultative meetings with representatives of legislative and executive bodies and always present urgent issues during such meetings.
To this end, the second part of the meeting was designed to give the floor to the participants of the discussion not only to present the challenges to women’s rights in the war and post-war period, but also to discuss what we can do together to mitigate those challenges.
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