Human rights and women in the Armed Forces in Armenia

Start date: 1 June 2019

Duration: 10 months

Budget: EUR 287,726

Donor: UK Government’s Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF)

Partners: Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Armenia, Human Rights Defender’s Office, Government Agent, Military prosecutors, Investigative Committee and civil society organizations.

The overall objective of the Project was to contribute to better human rights protection in the armed forces, and in particular the rights of female officers by helping guarantee equal service conditions for women and empowering them to champion positive change.

As a result the Project:

• Supported the authorities to draft legislation and other regulations pertaining to effectively preventing, investigating and eradicating human rights violations in the armed forces, aimed at decreasing discrimination of and inequality among women and men in line with detailed and gender-sensitive expert recommendations;

• gender-sensitive methodologies, tools, procedures and trainings for key institutions were developed to enable their staff to prevent, investigate and eradicate human rights violations in the armed forces, especially to ensure full and effective equality of women and men are available to the main stakeholders;

• specific measures to increase awareness, knowledge and skills of military servicepersons and future conscripts of human rights issues and equality principles in the context of the armed forces were designed and launched, including the establishment of a group of human rights champions.