Violence Against Women Remains a Serious Issue In Armenia: PACE President

Armenia has registered a tangible progress in terms of ensuring equality between women and men in the country, but violence against women, unfortunately, still occurs in Armenia, Anne Brasseur, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said on Monday, April 13, during a press briefing at the RA National Assembly. 

“The Council of Europe has a convention to combat [violence against women], but this convention, called Istanbul Convention, has not been signed or ratified [by Armenia]. This is in issue I am going to raise with the Government,” the PACE President said.

Recall, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, had also called on the Armenian authorities to ratify the Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. In his summary report following his visit to Armenia from 5 to 9 October, 2014, the Commissioner criticized the practice of violating women’s rights and observed the disadvantaged situation of women in the country.

Citing the NSS and UNFPA’s survey, the report noted that 8.9% of Armenian women have been subjected to at least one form of physical violence by their partners, mostly in the home.

25% of women report at least one form of psychological violence, while 3.3% have testified that they have been subject to sexual violence by their intimate partner. 61.7% of those surveyed endured some form of controlling behavior by an intimate partner through restricting contacts with family and friends, controlling movement or any undertaking outside the household, or making a woman seek permission for accessing health services. The survey also tackles forms of economic violence against women such as economic disempowerment, including economic deprivation (e.g. withholding of money, confiscation of earnings and savings, forbidding a woman to work).