Forum on prevention of violence against women and domestic violence was held

Today, Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Vigen Kocharyan participated in the forum on "Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence". The meeting, organised by the Council of Europe, was attended by the Head of the Council of Europe Office in Armenia Natalia Voutova, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Arsen Manukyan, Head of the Department of Protection of Juvenile Rights and Combat against Domestic Violence of the General Department of Criminal Intelligence of the Police of the Republic of Armenia Nelli Duryan, Vice Rector of the Justice Academy of the Republic of Armenia Anahit Manasyan and others.

Deputy Minister of Justice Vigen Kocharyan expressed gratitude to the Council of Europe Office in Armenia and underlined that the CoE has always supported the activities aimed at preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence in Armenia. According to V. Kocharyan, brilliant evidence is the implementation of the project "Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence in Armenia" launched by the Council of Europe in April 2018; the aim of the project was to build the capacities of the main stakeholder institutions participating in the prevention of domestic violence.

"As you know, exactly one year ago, the National Assembly adopted the Law "On prevention of domestic violence, protection of persons subjected to domestic violence and restoration of solidarity in family", which entered into force this January. It is needless to mention that the path for adoption of this Law was hard and there were certain obstacles, in particular, various misunderstandings on the regulatory framework and nature of the Law were being spread. Despite that, we managed to adopt the Law, which created preconditions for our future steps in this sector," the Deputy Minister noted.

Vigen Kocharyan also touched upon the content of the Law, noting that it regulates the organisational and legal grounds for the prevention of domestic violence and the protection of people subjected to domestic violence, defines the concept of "domestic violence", the powers of competent bodies in the field of prevention of domestic violence and protection of persons subjected to domestic violence, types of protection means, grounds for their application, peculiarities of reconciliation between persons, who were subjected to and those who applied domestic violence and the peculiarities of legal protection of information about persons subjected to domestic violence.

In this context, Deputy Minister Kocharyan expressed certainty that adoption of the Law is yet the first step; it is necessary to create secondary legislative grounds for full implementation of the Law and opportunities for flexible cooperation.

The CoE standards related to the sphere, the practical experience in combating and preventing violence against women and domestic violence were also presented during the forum.