Armenian Parliament Passes Bill on ‘Preventing Violence in Family’

The National Assembly of Armenia overwhelmingly passed a bill Friday seeking to “prevent family violence, protect persons subjected to family violence, and restore family cohesion.” All MPs from the ruling Republican Party and the opposition Yelk alliance voted in favor of the bill; 12 MPs from the Tsarukyan voted against the bill, while 8 lawmakers abstained from voting.

Recall, on November 23 a group of women’s rights activists gathered outside the Government building in Yerevan to protest against the unexpected amendments to the bill. The demonstrators demanded that the authorities change the name of the bill back to its original one and make other contextual changes to the draft to ensure that the future law is effective in protecting domestic violence victims.

The draft’s final version published on the government’s official website in mid-November showed that the bill had undergone several significant amendments since it was first put to public discussion early last month. The authors had also changed the name of the bill to “on prevention of family violence, protection of persons subjected to family violence, restoration of family cohesion.”