Due to discrimination 40 percent of women are jobless in Armenia (video)
There is no law on anti-discrimination in Armenia. Today in Media Centre the members of “Fight against discrimination and for equality” coalition talked about the gap in the law and about its consequences. Anahit Simonyan, the coordinator of “Women’s Recourse Centre” programs, noted that the discrimination is a major problem not only for individuals, who are subjected to discrimination, but also for the whole society. “Because of the discrimination the person is alienated, their capabilities are limited. In Armenia we can see discrimination in all the spheres of life. Every day each of us can be subjected to different kinds of discrimination. Many people are subjected to discrimination without even doubting it, because we have lack of awareness in the society,” she told. Anahit Simonyan noted that discrimination can be found mostly in the fields of education and employment. There are also a great number of gender discrimination cases. “Today the half of women doesn’t work in Armenia, but the 40 percent of the unemployed women have both higher education and ability to work, but because of discriminative attitude they are deprived of that opportunity.” Violeta Zopunyan, Head of “Law Development Centre” NGO, who was also present in the discussion, noted that in 2015 the Ministry of Justice created a draft law on discrimination, in which the members of the coalition participated. She highlighted the fact that the law is adopted with all those provisions, which exist in the international documents as criteria. “The number one task, which the law must solve, is definition of the term ‘discrimination’ to understand what is discrimination and how people are subjected to discrimination. First the law must prevent the cases of discrimination and, finally, hold accountable those, who show discriminative attitude.”
