On May 18, an expanded meeting of the National Assembly-Civil Society Cooperation Platform was held. The goal of the meeting was to present the main achievements and challenges in the Platform’s work, as well as to discuss recommendations submitted by civil society organizations on the promotion of women’s employment and protection of their labor rights in Armenia.
🔷 Present at the meeting were Ruben Sargsyan, Deputy Minister of the RA Labor and Social Issues, Heriknaz Tigranyan, Chairperson of the RA NA Standing Committee on Labor and Social Issues, Bilyanna Ledenika, Chief Technical Expert of the UNDP project “Modern Parliament for a Modern Armenia,” and Margarita Hakobyan, Executive Director of OxYGen Foundation, who greeted the participants in their opening remarks.
🔷 During the meeting, CSO representatives raised a number of issues, which were related to sexual harassment in the workplace, protection of the rights of domestic violence victims, the rights of pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers, etc. Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Issues Ruben Sargsyan noted that the amended Labor Code already incorporates a number of recommendations made by civil society, which will be reflected in the final draft to be submitted to the National Assembly for discussion.
🔷 Expert Tamara Hovnatanyan briefly presented the activities of the NA-CSO Cooperation Platform in 2019-2021. She noted that thanks to the joint work of the Platform participants, 13 of the presented recommendations had been incorporated in legislative regulations and 10 more had been referred for other solutions.
🔷 The participants had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the results of the research “Female MPs in the National Assembly of the 5th, 6th, and 7th Convocations.”
A more detailed communique on the meeting is available here.
📌 The event was organized within the framework of the project “Modern Parliament for a Modern Armenia” The project is implemented by the UNDP in cooperation with the RA National Assembly and with the financial support of the United Kingdom’s “Good Governance Fund” and the Government of Sweden.
📌 The goal of the National Assembly-Civil Society Cooperation Platform is to ensure participation of civil society in legislative initiatives aimed at legal empowerment of women in the political, economic, and social areas, as well as the promotion of equal rights and equal opportunities of women and men.
