Social

Home page

Social

The European Union and Council of Europe are organising a series of online webinar sessions on specific articles of the Istanbul Convention - VIDEO

18 March 2021 20:38 (UTC +04:00)

The European Union and Council of Europe are organising a series of online webinar sessions on specific articles of the Istanbul Convention under the framework of their joint Partnership for Good Governance (PGG II) action “Raising awareness of the Istanbul Convention and other gender equality standards in Azerbaijan,” APA reports.

The first of these series of webinars took place on 18 March. The event was dedicated to Article 12 on general state obligations on preventing violence against women. This Article has to do with how states can prevent violence against women and domestic violence.

Making a keynote speech at the event, Senior Project Officer Parvana Bayramova spoke about the objectives. Then, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Baku Zoltán Hernyes was given the floor. Ambassador welcomed the participants, gave information about the project and webinar, wished the event to have a success.

Following this, Council of Europe expert Rabiya Ali made a presentation on the theme “Article 12 of the Istanbul Convention: General Obligations”. Discussions were held on challenging gender stereotypes, women empowerment, disadvantaged groups, involving men and boys and several other preventive steps.

The presentation on Article 12 was continued with Q&A session. The participants were especially interested in the examples on the implementation of this article in other countries. Attention was drawn to how to detect cases of violence against women, take measures on the local level or to achieve acceptance of the violence against women as a public matter.

Senior Project Officer Parvana Bayramova shared her views, briefed on Istanbul Convention: "Around one in three women worldwide has experienced some form of violence against women in their lifetime, and in Azerbaijan, data available suggests that the situation is not much different. However, statistics also show that around 61% of victims of domestic violence do not report the abuse to anyone. Domestic violence continues to be seen to some degree as a private family matter, which leads to an atmosphere of acceptance and adds additional barriers for women to report violence. Around 40% of women in Azerbaijan do not know about existing laws on domestic violence.

Azerbaijan has made some advancements towards combating and preventing violence against women and domestic violence in the past years. Nevertheless, further action is required. By joining the Istanbul Convention, Azerbaijan would be putting in place the best possible framework to prevent violence, protect victims, and prosecute perpetrators of violence, leading to a freer society with less violence."

This webinar is a part of the series of webinars dedicated to the articles of the Council of Europe Convention (Istanbul Convention) on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence."