Epress.am News from Armenia
In five villages of the Armavir province of Armenia, 32 Yazidi children do not attend school, 19 of them girls; 6 Yazidi boys, meanwhile, do not go to school in the Aragatsotn province, Boris Murazi, head of the Sinjar Yazidi National Union NGO, told Epress.am on Tuesday. Sinjar, according to Murazi, received these statistics from the two provinces’ administrations in response to earlier inquiries.
“The number of kids who do not attend school might be higher. There are children who are registered in educational institutions, but are not allowed to go to classes,” he said.
Murazi intends to send these statistics to Armenia’s Ministry of Education and Science as evidence of a violation of the law on compulsory education, which entered into force in September 2017.
Note, Sinjar has repeatedly raised the issue of the implementation of the right of Yazidi children to education. According to one of their reports, the widespread violation of the Yazidi women’s right to education is facilitated by inaction on the part of Armenia’s state bodies.
“The negligent conduct of government agencies also contributes to the violation of Yazidi women’s right to education. […] In villages mainly populated by Yazidis, many parents do not allow their daughters to graduate even 5th or 6th grade, but the Ministry of Education and Science has never tried to explain to these parents that they are violating the law and their children’s right to education […],” one of the non-profit’s reports had stated.