Armenia should intensify efforts to ensure gender equality. CoE Commissioner for Human Rights

Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muiznieks has published the report of his visit to Armenia from 5 to 9 October 2014.

According to the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (the Convention on violence against women), “violence against women” is understood as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women and includes all acts of gender-based violence that result in, or are likely to result in, physical, sexual, psychological or economic harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life. Although perpetrators and victims of domestic violence may be either men or women, in the vast majority of cases it is women who are exposed to violence at the hands of men, thereby making it a gender-based phenomenon where women are disproportionately affected. Women and girls are also the primary victims of sexual violence.

Consequently, violence against women is regarded as a form of discrimination and an expression of gender inequalities, the subordinate position of women and patriarchal stereotypes and attitudes. The Preamble of the Convention on violence against women recognises that “violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between women and men, which have led to domination over, and discrimination against, women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women”.

The Commissioner is concerned about the social attitudes accepting and justifying violence against women in some cases, thereby contributing to shield perpetrators from accountability. He was informed that a number of political leaders, including parliamentarians, have denied the problem of domestic violence in Armenia and even justified it in some cases. The Commissioner systematically raised this issue with his official interlocutors at national level and encouraged them to send a clear message of “zero tolerance” for violence against women.

There have been a number of surveys on domestic violence in Armenia. In its 2008 report on family violence in Armenia, Amnesty International found that over a quarter of women in Armenia may at some time experience physical violence at the hands of husbands or other family members, with much higher figures reported for psychological forms of violence.

The main forms of violence documented by the report were the following: psychological violence; isolation and control; physical violence; sexual
violence including marital rape; and sexual harassment, which is believed to be widespread in the workplace.

According to a 2011 survey conducted by the National Statistical Service of Armenia and the UNFPA, 8.9% of women taking part in the survey experienced at least one form of physical violence by an intimate partner.

The survey revealed that most instances of physical violence against women are committed in the family.

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).