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Armenia’s Pro-Russia Stance Has a Cost for Women’s Rights

In late October, the World Economic Forum released its annual Gender Gap Index. To those of us working in women’s rights in Armenia, the ranking confirmed what we already knew: in the last year, things have gotten worse for women in Armenia.

In this year’s roster, Armenia dropped nine spots, landing at number 103 of 142, the lowest of any country in the Eurasia (or former Soviet) region. This is largely due to a lack of political and economic opportunities for women. As the index notes, Armenia’s sex-selective abortions, which result in 88 girls born per 100 boys, are a serious demographic and gender equality problem exceeded only by China’s.

But little has been done on the national level to combat sex-selection or grapple with other gender equality issues, including domestic violence. Instead, amid Armenia’s geopolitical pivot away from Europe and toward Russia, the battle for gender equality has been reframed as an assualt on Armenia’s ancestral values, rather than a fight for the good of Armenia’s women.

For an example of this, one need look no further than our ongoing efforts to pass a law on domestic violence. More than 1,100 domestic violence cases, including 11 murders, have been reported officially this year in Armenia, a country of under three million residents. (The number is up from last year’s 500 complaints, a sad count but a positive sign, reflecting police efforts to improve reporting mechanisms ahead of upcoming changes to the criminal code.)

Yet all attempts by the civil society to pass legislation addressing domestic violence have been stifled. The discussion around women’s safety, like most women’s rights topics in Armenia, has been hijacked by extremist, nationalist groups that portray protecting women as a threat to the country’s heteronormative families, and a foreign intrusion. 

These groups first appeared in Armenia in 2013 ahead of President Serzh Sargsyan’s announcement that the country would join the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. Suspiciously, they use messaging, and even logos, nearly identical to those of Russia’s “pro-family” and “traditional values” advocates.

As in Russia, their strategy relies on frightening regular citizens into opposing Europe by invoking the threat of extrinsic changes, to be brought in by women’s and other rights activists. For this reason, in the last 18 months, my organization, the Women’s Resource Center Armenia, and our allies, have been called “genderasts” in Russian- and Armenian-language media, an insult meant to imply we support pederasty and pedophilia.

We are alleged to teach children to be homosexuals, to encourage women to leave and destroy their families, and to take away children from their parents. On an everyday level, supporters of the “pro-family” groups often appear at domestic violence trials to intimidate victims. Videos slandering our organization, which have been distributed widely, ensure that we are greeted with apprehension by women.

It is worth spelling out that this kind of intimidation receives direct support from our government, which recently awarded a medal of honor to a newspaper owner who published a blacklist of LGBT advocates, our fellow “genderasts.”

Fortunately, in this atmosphere of increased oppression, there are bright spots as women take on more active roles in civil society, including its environmental and anti-corruption movements and in Armenia’s local governments. As rights activists, we are using networks inside and outside Armenia to broaden support for women’s rights and anti-discrimination measures.

This fall, with our new partners, we are renewing a push for a law on domestic violence. Still, the situation remains serious as society is still influenced by whatever is broadcasted by our government and its loyal media. Currently, little space remains for alternative thinking on women’s issues and sexuality, or for legal initiatives that might improve their standing.

The Women’s Resource Center Armenia is a grantee of the Open Society Foundations–Armenia.

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