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ARMENIA: SLOW PROGRESS ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LAW
By Mary Aleksanyan
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
IWPR Caucasus Reporting #666
Nov 26 2012
UK
Specific legislation is nearly ready, but campaign groups say there
is no political will to drive it through.
Campaigners in Armenia say are frustrated with the four-year delay
in passing legislation on domestic violence, and question whether
officials are really committed to making it happen.
Until a specific law is enacted, they say, it will be hard to prosecute
offenders and protect vulnerable women.
In one high-profile case, Haykunash Mikaelyan is currently on trial
for abusing her daughter-in-law Mariam Gevorkyan. Prosecutors were
able to file criminal charges because actual injury had taken place.
Last year, Gevorgyan returned to Armenia from Russia, saying she had
suffered abuse from her husband and mother-in-law in the ten months
she was married and living in that country.
"They were always finding new reasons to beat me - 'you slammed the
door', or 'you did the housework too slowly'. If I complained, they
beat me for talking too much," she said.
Her husband David Ziroyan was prosecuted but was later freed under
a general amnesty.
Mikaelyan denies any wrongdoing and says the broken nose, bruises
and burns that Gevorkyan had when she returned to Armenia were the
result of a disease.
Rights activists have held daily demonstrations outside the court in
Artashat where the Gevorkyan case is being heard, to demand that it
take place in open rather than closed session.
Gevorkyan's lawyer Nona Galstyan said the fact that domestic abuse
had to be dealt with under general criminal law rather than as a
particular offence made it much harder to win court cases.
"The absence of a law means that female victims of domestic violence
are often left defenceless. The police will not launch a criminal
case unless serious injury or death has taken place," she said.
Lara Aharonyan, head of the Women's Resource Centre, agreed, saying,
"If there was a law, it would be far easier to prosecute cases like
Mariam's and others. At the moment, we have a very limited number of
legal options."
There are no statistics on the number of women who suffer abuse in
the home. The only figures came out of a 2009 survey backed by the
United Nations Population Fund. A quarter of respondents said they
suffered psychological abuse, nine per cent said they were assaulted,
and three per cent said they suffered sexual violence.
The non-government Women's Rights Centre gave higher totals based
on its own findings, in which 66 per cent of respondents reported
psychological abuse and 30 per cent domestic violence.
Between January and September this year, 700 women called the centre's
hotline to report cases of physical, sexual or psychological abuse.
The Women's Resource Centre drafted a law on domestic violence in
2007 and submitted it to the labour and social affairs ministry two
years later.
Its head Aharonyan says the murder of 20-year-old Zaruhi Petrosyan
in 2010 created new impetus to move things forward.
Petrosyan endured two years of assault during her two years of
marriage. In October 2011, her husband Yanis Sarkisov was sentenced
to ten years in prison for her murder.
The case prompted seven NGOs to form a coalition to press the
authorities to pass the law.
"Zaruhi's death, while tragic, really helped to raise the issue of
domestic violence all across Armenia," Aharonyan said. "With public
pressure on one side, and pressure from international organisations
[concerning] the government's obligations on the other, the state
was forced to address the law."
The labour and social affairs ministry began serious work on the
issue in May 2011, setting up a working group.
This coincided with a report from the United Nations Committee on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which accused
the Armenian authorities of doing too little to curb domestic abuse.
On November 13, 2012, the ministry finally published a draft bill
for public discussion.
In its present form, the law would allow courts to impose tougher
penalties for domestic violence and give police new mechanisms
for preventing it, such as issuing formal warnings and intervening
directly. Police would be able to impose 72-hour exclusion orders
while they looked into a case, and courts could then extend this.
"We are not late; we are approving this law right on time," insisted
Lala Ghazaryan, head of the ministry's department for women and
children. "It's a very serious problem and drafting the bill has been
extremely labour-intensive."
However, deputy minister Filaret Berikyan warned of further hold-ups
because the bill would need to comply with a new Council of Europe
convention on domestic violence.
"Our country intends to join the convention in future, and that means
the law would have to be amended anyway," he said.
Davit Amiryan, deputy director of Open Society Armenia, which has
supported the bill, expressed concern at the prospect of further
delays.
"Time after time, they find new reasons not to submit this law to
the government and parliament for approval.," he said. "In May 2010,
the Armenian representative in Geneva said the law was going to be
approved soon. The facts demonstrate that the reason why this law
hasn't been passed is that there is no will to do so."
Amiryan said the key to progress was for officials to acknowledge the
problem, which meant "viewing it from a rights perspective, not as
something to do with history, culture, traditions or religion. If we
don't view it as a violation of human rights, then we're never going
to resolve it."
Mary Aleksanyan is a journalist who writes for the www
http://iwpr.net/report-news/armenia-slow-progress-domestic-violence-law
From: Baghdasarian
By Mary Aleksanyan
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
IWPR Caucasus Reporting #666
Nov 26 2012
UK
Specific legislation is nearly ready, but campaign groups say there
is no political will to drive it through.
Campaigners in Armenia say are frustrated with the four-year delay
in passing legislation on domestic violence, and question whether
officials are really committed to making it happen.
Until a specific law is enacted, they say, it will be hard to prosecute
offenders and protect vulnerable women.
In one high-profile case, Haykunash Mikaelyan is currently on trial
for abusing her daughter-in-law Mariam Gevorkyan. Prosecutors were
able to file criminal charges because actual injury had taken place.
Last year, Gevorgyan returned to Armenia from Russia, saying she had
suffered abuse from her husband and mother-in-law in the ten months
she was married and living in that country.
"They were always finding new reasons to beat me - 'you slammed the
door', or 'you did the housework too slowly'. If I complained, they
beat me for talking too much," she said.
Her husband David Ziroyan was prosecuted but was later freed under
a general amnesty.
Mikaelyan denies any wrongdoing and says the broken nose, bruises
and burns that Gevorkyan had when she returned to Armenia were the
result of a disease.
Rights activists have held daily demonstrations outside the court in
Artashat where the Gevorkyan case is being heard, to demand that it
take place in open rather than closed session.
Gevorkyan's lawyer Nona Galstyan said the fact that domestic abuse
had to be dealt with under general criminal law rather than as a
particular offence made it much harder to win court cases.
"The absence of a law means that female victims of domestic violence
are often left defenceless. The police will not launch a criminal
case unless serious injury or death has taken place," she said.
Lara Aharonyan, head of the Women's Resource Centre, agreed, saying,
"If there was a law, it would be far easier to prosecute cases like
Mariam's and others. At the moment, we have a very limited number of
legal options."
There are no statistics on the number of women who suffer abuse in
the home. The only figures came out of a 2009 survey backed by the
United Nations Population Fund. A quarter of respondents said they
suffered psychological abuse, nine per cent said they were assaulted,
and three per cent said they suffered sexual violence.
The non-government Women's Rights Centre gave higher totals based
on its own findings, in which 66 per cent of respondents reported
psychological abuse and 30 per cent domestic violence.
Between January and September this year, 700 women called the centre's
hotline to report cases of physical, sexual or psychological abuse.
The Women's Resource Centre drafted a law on domestic violence in
2007 and submitted it to the labour and social affairs ministry two
years later.
Its head Aharonyan says the murder of 20-year-old Zaruhi Petrosyan
in 2010 created new impetus to move things forward.
Petrosyan endured two years of assault during her two years of
marriage. In October 2011, her husband Yanis Sarkisov was sentenced
to ten years in prison for her murder.
The case prompted seven NGOs to form a coalition to press the
authorities to pass the law.
"Zaruhi's death, while tragic, really helped to raise the issue of
domestic violence all across Armenia," Aharonyan said. "With public
pressure on one side, and pressure from international organisations
[concerning] the government's obligations on the other, the state
was forced to address the law."
The labour and social affairs ministry began serious work on the
issue in May 2011, setting up a working group.
This coincided with a report from the United Nations Committee on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which accused
the Armenian authorities of doing too little to curb domestic abuse.
On November 13, 2012, the ministry finally published a draft bill
for public discussion.
In its present form, the law would allow courts to impose tougher
penalties for domestic violence and give police new mechanisms
for preventing it, such as issuing formal warnings and intervening
directly. Police would be able to impose 72-hour exclusion orders
while they looked into a case, and courts could then extend this.
"We are not late; we are approving this law right on time," insisted
Lala Ghazaryan, head of the ministry's department for women and
children. "It's a very serious problem and drafting the bill has been
extremely labour-intensive."
However, deputy minister Filaret Berikyan warned of further hold-ups
because the bill would need to comply with a new Council of Europe
convention on domestic violence.
"Our country intends to join the convention in future, and that means
the law would have to be amended anyway," he said.
Davit Amiryan, deputy director of Open Society Armenia, which has
supported the bill, expressed concern at the prospect of further
delays.
"Time after time, they find new reasons not to submit this law to
the government and parliament for approval.," he said. "In May 2010,
the Armenian representative in Geneva said the law was going to be
approved soon. The facts demonstrate that the reason why this law
hasn't been passed is that there is no will to do so."
Amiryan said the key to progress was for officials to acknowledge the
problem, which meant "viewing it from a rights perspective, not as
something to do with history, culture, traditions or religion. If we
don't view it as a violation of human rights, then we're never going
to resolve it."
Mary Aleksanyan is a journalist who writes for the www
http://iwpr.net/report-news/armenia-slow-progress-domestic-violence-law
From: Baghdasarian