Suren Krmoyan: "Children are our future, and the most important thing is everyone's contribution in this direction"

Today, Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Suren Krmoyan participated in the presentation-discussion of the ad hoc public report of the Human Rights Defender on “Commitments under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its protocols: the state of fulfilment by Armenia.” The discussion was organised by the Office of Human Rights Defender jointly with the UNICEF.

Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia Arman Tatoyan, Representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund in Armenia Tanja Radocaj, experts of a number of non-governmental organisations dealing with issues of the rights and protection of children participated in the presentation-discussion of the report.

Deputy Minister of Justice Suren Krmoyan expressed his gratitude to the Office of the Human Rights Defender and the United Nations Children’s Fund in Armenia for organising the meeting regarding the protection of children's rights, as well as noted that the Ministry of Justice views effective protection of children's rights as a priority issue and a task that is performed on a daily basis.

According to Deputy Minister Krmoyan, children are our future, and the most important thing is everyone's contribution in this direction. S. Krmoyan stressed that, in this context, the creation of the Council for Juvenile Justice as an independent body and inter-agency platform — founded in 2016 and operating to date — may be considered as a successful experiment. Within the scope of discussion of the report on protection of children's rights, the Deputy Minister noted that the right of the child should be protected in family relations as well, for example, when there is a divorce or any other problem in the family.

It should also be mentioned that when preparing the report, a number of concluding observations related to the Convention and its protocols were examined, interviews were held with independent field-related experts, specialists dealing with the protection of children's rights, advocates and judges. A number of judicial acts, conclusions of guardianship and trusteeship bodies were examined, special attention was also paid to the programmes issued or broadcast by mass media outlets, discussions were held on social networks, etc.