Women and persons from national minority communities, often face discrimination for overlapping reasons and the challenges get harder to address when they're treated as separate issues. To look at this more closely, Armenia's Human Rights Defender's Office brought together two of its advisory groups: one focused on national minority rights and one focused on women's rights. The goal was to explore where these issues intersect and find better ways to protect those affected by both forms of discrimination.

The Council of Europe supported the event through its local project on equality and non-discrimination in Armenia, helping guide the discussion using European standards as a reference point.

Building on earlier meetings, the joint session gave participants a chance to look at ongoing problems and consider next steps to better protect groups at risk of discrimination. Two topics got special attention: protecting minority languages and getting more women into political life and decision-making roles.

The Head of the Council of Europe Office in Yerevan, Maxime Longangué, underlined the rich set of standards and recommendations by the Organisation in the field of gender equality, the combat of racism and intolerance and promotion and protection of rights of national minorities and minority languages.

The sessions helped civil society representatives learn more about these standards. Participants discussed difficult issues affecting Armenian society, such as child and forced marriage, bride kidnapping and sex-selective abortion, as well as the obstacles that stop victims from reporting these problems. They also discussed how language barriers can limit access to education, rights and general awareness for minority communities.

The meeting concluded with a shared recognition of the follow-up need to organise working-level meetings with civil society groups from minority communities to hear needs and develop appropriate measures in response.

This event was organised as part of the European Union and Council of Europe joint programme “Partnership for Good Governance”, co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe, in the framework of the regional project “Promoting equality and non-discrimination in Armenia.”