On 8 June 2021, the action “Raising awareness of the Istanbul Convention and other gender equality standards in Azerbaijan” delivered the second of a series of webinars dedicated to explaining specific articles of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) in Azerbaijan.

The aim of these series of webinars is to contribute to the debate at the national level on why Azerbaijan should join the convention. The second webinar was dedicated to Article 13 of the Istanbul Convention on raising awareness on violence against women.

A wide variety of stakeholders participated in the webinar, including relevant state authorities, civil society representatives, students, journalists, legal professionals. The presentation of the Council of Europe expert was followed by a Q&A session, during which participants raised important issues such as the role of men and boys in raising awareness, the need for co-operation across actors (including equality bodies and national human rights institutions), the role of media and the importance of allocating resources to such actions. 

The next webinars in 2021 will focus on the following topics:

• ‘Domestic and Sexual Violence Perpetrator Programmes: Article 16 of the Istanbul Convention’
• ‘Emergency Barring Orders in Situations of Domestic Violence: Article 52 of the Istanbul Convention’

This activity took place under the joint action ‘Raising awareness of the Istanbul Convention and other gender equality standards in Azerbaijan’ currently implemented within the Programme for Good Governance II (PGGII), a European Union and Council of Europe joint programme in the Eastern Partnership countries. Among other objectives, the joint action seeks to support the Azerbaijani authorities to sign the Istanbul Convention.

For further information on the project, please visit the project’s website.

Further information on PGGII is available on the PGGII’s website.