Women`s Rights Center

 

            
Domestic Violence National Hot Line
 
 0.800.80.850 or
 ( +374 10)  542828  


 


  

Make a Donation

WRC Activities

   

The WRC works mainly in two areas:

a/ prevention of domestic violence against  women and their children;

b/ women’s reproductive and sexual health and rights.

 

 

 

 

 

Domestic Violence Prevention 

 

The problem of Domestic Violence is not nation or country-specific - the whole world is looking for an effective means of combating it. Armenia is not an exception as well, where domestic violence exists in all its types. Today it is an incontestable fact.

 

Domestic violence in Armenia used to be considered as a “private issue,” a family’s internal problem that do not need and not to be dealt with intervention of society. Women’s Rights Center is working on prevention of domestic violence in the country about 13 years, providing holistic approach to the problem. Working mainly in the sphere of providing assistance to women victims of violence and their children, we very often encounter a number of problems and difficulties.

 

These obstacles are stipulated with lack of relevant legal field, mechanisms and infrastructures, absence of services for the victims of domestic violence and lack of information in the society that caused formation of indifferent attitude of the society towards the domestic violance issue.

 

Therefore, WRC activities are directed to cover those fields and reduce to minimum the negative impact caused by the absance or lack of relevant tools mentioned above.

 

Women’s Reproductive Health and Rights is another important issue for world society.

Millions of women every year seek to terminate their pregnancies – the estimates based on figures for the year 2000 indicate that out of 210 million pregnancies worldwide, approximately 46 million ended in induced abortion. Nearly half of these abortions were considered to be unsafe (performed by unskilled providers or under unhygienic conditions or both) and resulted in 67,900 deaths.

 

Armenia has one of the highest abortion rates in the region (2.6 abortions per woman). One factor contributing to high abortion rate is the low use of modern contraception. Expanding choice of abortion services is one of the important steps in improving the quality of women’s reproductive health care.In Armenia, like many of its neighboring countries, abortion is a major method of birth control.

 

An alternative way to surgical abortion is medical abortion, which is important to introduce and offer to women. For almost two decades now, medical abortion using mifepristone and misoprostol has been shown to be a safe, effective, and acceptable option for terminating unwanted pregnancies. Research focusing on dosage, route of administration, timing of mifepristone and misoprostol administration, gestational age limits, and location of misoprostol administration seeks to improve treatment regimens even further so that they empower women, minimize side effects, maximize efficacy, and are simple enough to administer in rural areas where health services may be poorly equipped.

 

WRC in cooperation with the Ministry of Health of RA works towards professional capacity building of gynecologists to use medical abortion as safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning and alternative to surgery. 2 new medicines – misoprostol and mifepristone have been registered in Armenia and about 700 women with unwanted pregnancy were provided with free relevant medicine and medical assistance during 2009-2010 years.

 

Alongside with its main working directions (i.e. prevention of domestic violence and women’s reproductive health and rights) WRC carry out Supplementary Activities to reach best results in its work and to cover all spheres of women's rights protection. WRC participates in different meetings, discussions, and actions concerning women's rights protection.

 
Provision of Supportive Services on Combating Domestic Violence Issue

WRC services are designed to reveal cases of domestic violence as well as its causes and peculiarities in Armenia in order to work out measures to combat domestic violence and to provide adequate assistance to victims subjected to Domestic Violence.

 

WRC National Hot Line service provides free psychological assistance and legal counseling for women subjected to domestic violence more than 14 years. The service is available 24 hours a day and covers the whole territory of Armenia.

 

During 2011 the National Hot Line Service has registered 2032 calls.1678 calls of the total number were calls on domestic violence (537 primary and 1141 repeated); 1042 calls out of 1678 concerned psychological domestic violence, 614– physical, 22 – sexual. In most cases, telephone conversation is not sufficient for providing full range of assistance to victims of domestic violence. 

 

However,  in 2012 statistic data of calls and visits on domestic violence differs a lot from previous statistics due to the increase of calls and visits. Particularly, the National Hot Line Service has registered 2832 calls. 1845 calls of the total number were calls on domestic violence (656 primary and 1189 repeated). 385 calls out of 656 concerned to psychological violence, 338 - physical and 8 calls were of sexual violence. 

 

For this reason, women-victims are invited to the Women’s Support and Drop-in Center linked to Hot Line Service, where they are provided with free face to face individual and group psychological as well as legal assistance which includes counseling, composition of corresponding documents, applications, composition of written requests to receive information from governmental and non-governmental bodies regarding cases, as well as inquiries of information by phone, establishment of interrelations.

 

For the year of 2011 Women's Support and Drop-in Center has registered 404 visits (179 primary and 225 repeated). However, in 2012 the number of visits to the center grew till 541, from which 540 (211 primary and 329 repeated) cases were on domestic violence. 300 visits from 540 were cases on psychological violence, 232 visits were related to physical violence and 8 to sexual violence.

 

Hot Line Services in 4 Regions: Since December, 2009 Local Hotline Services and Crisis Centers began to function in 4 regions of Armenia – Gegharkounik, Tavoush, Lori and Syunik, providing legal and psychological counseling to the victims of domestic violence.

 

During 2011 the Hot Line Services in Regions have registered 1574 calls, 1364 of which were on domestic violence. 324 calls out of 1364 concerned psychological domestic violence, 123 -physical, 4 -sexual. Meanwhile, in 2012 the Hot Line Services in regions have registered 1896 calls in total, 1661calls of which were on domestic violence. It has to be mentioned, that 330 calls from 1661 were on psychological violence, 88 were on physical violence and 7 calls were on sexual violence. Through active awareness raising campaign throughout the 4 regions: Gegharkounik, Tavoush, Lori and Syunik which includes small towns and villages the data on calls and visits received from women subjected to domestic violence has been increased.

 

Women apply to Crisis Centers for assistance and receive full range of psychological and legal support. In case if a woman is in danger, she is immediately directed to Emergency Shelter with Transitional Housing. The Hotline services and Crisis Centers' work is necessary to identify the cases of domestic violence but not sufficient to cure the negative consequences resulted by it.

 

Therefore, operation of the Emergency Shelter is an essential part of the WRC activities. The aim of the Shelter is:

a/ to provide them with full range of free psychological, legal, social and medical assistance,

b/ to help them to throw off stress, overcome the complex of victim, and increase their self-esteem and self-confidence.

 

Starting with 3 families in 2008, this number has been increased to 39 in 2011 and in 2012 it has reached to 43. It is obvious indicator of the effective work of Crisis Centers' staff and PR activities. Due to increase in number of women, who needs to move the  Emergency Shelter with Transitional Housing, WRC rented a new larger premises to be able to locate more beneficiaries.

 

In 2011 the number of families living in the Shelter was 39 (39 women and 47 children) and in 2012 the number of families grew up till 43 (43 women and 60 children). It should be mentioned that usually, the majority of the families that have been living in the Shelter was from Yerevan and it is normal as Yerevan contains 1/3 of population of the country.

 

Though victims of domestic violence belong to different strata of the society, women without relevant profession and with low economic independence are more vulnerable. Economical empowerment of its beneficiaries is one of the WRC priorities and, therefore, WRC tried to provide them with necessary profession and job. With this aim the WRC social worker finds appropriate training courses and negotiate with the providers to include our beneficiaries in the group. 

 

It is worth to mention that in general, women, who already find jobs, continue to live in the shelter for a while, which enables them to gather money for living expenses after they leave the shelter assisting them to get out of poverty and become more confident for their future. The successful cases are result of well-coordinated teamwork of WRC specialists (psychologists and lawyers) and the entire staff of WSDC.

  

All services, being operated by Women’s Rights Center serve as data basis for case studies to find out the scales, forms, geography, causes and consequences of domestic violence for further use in the advocacy and lobbying process.

News
Provision of Supportive Services on Combating Domestic Violence Issue
Elaboration of Appropriate Legal Mechanisms
Awareness Raising and Educational Campaigns
Awareness Raising on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights
Archive

Home  |  Activities  |  About us  |  Publications  |  Gallery  |  Contacts
Developed by Smart Systems LLC
en
am