What is UNICEF doing to #ENDviolence against children in Armenia

In the past two years, UNICEF has worked together with the Armenian government and other partners, to develop mechanisms to put an end to violence against children in Armenia. Here’s what you should know!

1.Armenia now has an inter-agency Council on Access to Justice for Children

We have supported the Ministry of Justice to establish an inter-agency Council on Access to Justice for Children with participation of all concerned state agencies, the Human Rights Defender’s Office, international and local child rights organizations and experts. We also supported the assessment of Armenia’s child protection system to ensure a common vision for the child care and social protection system reforms.

2. Armenia joined the END Violence Against Children Global Partnership in 2017 and is now a path-finding country

UNICEF worked with government partners, providing technical support when the country acceded to the WePROTECT Global Alliance against Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, as well as, to the End Violence Against Children Global Partnership as a path-finding country.

3. In 2017, together with the Justice Academy of Armenia, UNICEF developed a distance learning course for judges and prosecutors on the rights of children in criminal procedure.

4. UNICEF supported the Human Rights Defender’s Office to establish a Child Rights unit in 2017 to effectively address child rights violations.

5. UNICEF also provided technical expertise on a number of important legislative acts

We provided necessary expertise on important legislative acts, secondary legislation on adoption, and draft Code of Criminal Procedures. UNICEF recommendations for the revised Family Code led to respective amendments that reformed the process of domestic and international adoption in line with The Hague Convention. UNICEF also conducted a study on the needs of child victims and developed a manual for judges and prosecutors on how to best treat child victims and witnesses of violence.

Further focus

To sustain these positive developments, we now need to focus on the following directions:

• Develop a road map and action plan with clear indicators on how to address violence against children;
• Continue to develop the capacity and operational procedures for social service, justice and law enforcement professionals.

For every child, a safe environment and a happy childhood!