Legal advice
Feminist Activist Space
| From January to July 2024, 253 persons used the Women’s Resource Center’s feminist safe space to participate in various events and receive the Center’s services. February 16-18th and June 14-16th, the WRC organized the twice-a-year “Women’s Rights Three-day” training. 23 persons participated in the first training, while 24 attended the second one. As a result of the training, the participants had the opportunity to apply for subgrants to implement their feminist projects. At the end of the first training, 4 sub-grant projects were carried out, including a women’s well-being gathering, awareness-raising meetings for teenage girls, an informational platform about Armenian women (armfemmes), and discussions on gender equality. Another 4 projects are in progress as a result of the second training. You may watch the First Channel News report (in Armenian) on the training courses here. |
The fight for women’s rights would not have been complete without the resistance and women’s rights advancement campaign organized annually on March 8th.
This year, we organized March 8th open discussion with the following slogans:
| 21 persons took part in the discussion. Following that, a social media campaign was launched to address women and further promote our message. |
| During these months, we implemented another cycle of the “Girls Talk” program. Girls from Armenian regions and Yerevan attended the 8 sessions. Girls talked about healthy relationships, body positivity, feminism, art and activism and similar topics. |
On July 13th, the WRC annual art-activism workshop took place in Martuni. During the workshop, we discussed activism through feminism and art, and then we developed our art-activist ideas and implemented them via graffiti.
On July 26-28th, we organized the “Girls* Empowerment Camp 2024.” 19 persons actively participated in the camp.
The camp revolved around topics of feminism, self-care and mental wellbeing, leadership and equitable participation, sexual and reproductive health and rights, etc.
Since January, we have organized 4 femtalks on the following topics:
- COVID-19 effects on women convicts
- Shushanik Kurghinyan: the life of the revolutionary feminist
- The influence of climate change on women: femtalk and mandala making
- Women’s labor rights
We will continue the Femtalk series in September. Stay tuned!
Sexual and reproductive health and rights
Informative trainings for forcibly displaced pregnant women from Artsakh launched by the Women’s Resource Center in November 2023 has been carried on since January 2024. The training consists of 6 meetings, during which a number of topics have been discussed. Overall, 61 women participated in the training sessions.
Within its IPPF project, the Women’s Resource Center has been offering sexual and reproductive health services to structurally excluded groups of women. The project aimed to ensure that women forcibly deported from Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh) were provided with basic medical support. From December of 2023 to May of 2024, 379 women received sexual and reproductive health services, all of them were forcibly displaced persons from Artsakh. You can read about women’s experiences here.
In March, a one-day training was organized for 26 students at the Department of Obstetrics of the Basic Medical College of Yerevan.
Women’s rights advocacy
WRC’s Advocacy team has been continuing its work on influencing governmental policies and legislature, making them gender-sensitive and inclusive to different groups of women. During these months, we have had various initiatives with the governmental departments.
Regarding labor rights, we conducted the “Gender Discrimination Against Women in Labor Relations in Armenia” research. To unite the efforts of other organizations in the field, we organized a platform of 15 institutions that will work toward women’s labor rights advocacy. This initiative was possible thanks to the support of the Armenian branch of the Solidarity Center.
To promote women’s sexual and reproductive rights, we presented suggestions as well as had meetings with Armenian National Assembly members, which aimed to further discuss the planned changes by the PMs in the “RA Human Reproductive Health and reproductive right” law. As a result, on July 12, the National Assembly, with the second reading, adopted amendments to the abovementioned law, which, among several regulations, allows women to have a medical abortion in out-of-hospital conditions until the 8th week of the pregnancy. This change is an important progress for women’s reproductive rights promotion.
| In the “Women, Peace, and Security” agenda advancement framework, we have been continuing our consulting meetings with women’s organizations working in regional and rural areas. During recent months, we have formed a network of 22 organizations with whom we discuss the systemic issues when providing services during crises and women’s organizations’ roles, as well as the necessary steps of expanding the agenda. |
| This year, we participated in the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68). The annual session of the Commission is the biggest global UN gathering on women’s and girls’ empowerment. The priority theme of the #CSW68 was “Accelerating the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective.” |
During this period, we have held meetings to monitor the proposals sent to Armenia by the UN treaty bodies, in particular engaging representatives of the diplomatic community in Armenia, civil society, and governmental agencies, as well as representatives of the Human Rights Defender.
Capacity building for women’s CSO-s
In 2024, we continued our grant support to 3 main partner organizations. At the end of 2023, we launched an open call for sub-grant projects. As a result, in 2024, 7 organizations were selected to implement economic empowerment projects for women forcibly displaced from Artsakh, 7 organizations were selected to implement social-psychological adaptation projects, and another 7 organizations – for longer-term projects that include both components. About 900 persons benefited from the projects.
On July 1st, WRC Co-Founder Lara Aharonian participated in the Democracy Armenian Forum’s launch panel discussion on human rights. The speech (in Armenian) is available here.
Psychological meetings
During these months, WRC psychologists have held two group therapy series on personal growth, each consisting of 9 meetings. 14 people were provided with individual psychological consultations.
Free legal consultations
This semester, we have received 172 calls on our free legal consultation number, while 11 persons were provided with one-on-one consultations.
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