ArmInfo. In Armenia, gender based violence, and particularly family violence, is a serious challenge, Bradley Busetto, the UN Resident Coordinator in Armenia and UNDP permanent representative stated at the opening of 16-day campaign against gender based violence.
"In 2016, according to official data for the first semester, 373 cases of family violence have been reported, seven of which were deadly," Busetto stated. In this context he assessed positively the efforts of Armenia to overcome gender-based violence. Busetto encouraged the RA Government developed Draft Law on Family Violence, which will allow to cover the lack in the regulatory framework of this field.
Violence against women and girls remains one of the most serious human rights violation. This understanding is reflected in the new global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Goal Five on gender equality has a stand-alone target to end all forms of violence against all women by 2030. Worldwide, almost one third of women who have been in a relationship report that hey have experienced some form of violence, mostly by their intimate partner.
At the same time Busetto stated that gender-based violence could not be tackled in isolation, and there are concentrated efforts of all the stakeholders needed to address violence against women, and that all the state interlocutors, civil society and international community are encouraged to ensure that respective mechanisms and services are in place to support the victims of violence.
In his turn, Dirk Lorenz, the Acting Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Armenia, accentuated, that equal rights for men and women is one of the basic values of European Community. According him, the struggle against gender-based discrimination is one of the EU priorities. "I want also state that the issue of family violence will be among the priorities for EU in 2017 all over the world," he mentioned. In this context Lorenz added that EU is one of the largest donors for Armenia in respect to this issue. He also accentuated that EU will keep on helping Armenia to solve these problems.
To note, November 25 is the International Day of Women Protection against women. Every year the period between November 25 and December 10 ( Human Rights Day), the 16-day struggle against women violence Campaign is being held.