Tuesday, June 12 2018 13:25

ArmInfo.The Office of the RA Ombudsman presented an extraordinary report "On the state of Armenia's fulfillment of its obligations under the UN Convention and  relevant protocols on observing children's rights."

Armenian Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan, opening the discussion and  presentation, stressed that the report voiced the question of the  existence of systemic prerequisites for protecting the rights of  children in the country. "The study found that the conditions for  keeping children in special institutions are better than at home, and  some parents for this reason refuse to give children." The report  places emphasis on the return of children to families, since it is  extremely important for the child to grow up in the family. In rural  areas, this problem becomes particularly acute, and the report pays  attention to issues related to the quality of education provided, the  conditions in schools, the salary of Itel, which did not rise for  several years, reducing the workload of schools, the criteria of  recruitment of teachers, but would like to emphasize that the most  sensitive issue is the inability of the child to receive education  because of a disability," Tatoyan stressed. In this context, he added  that the subsidies in the sphere of education and medicine of Armenia  did not grow since 2013.

The representative of UNICEF Yerevan office Tanya Radochai, speaking  about the situation with the rights of children in Armenia, noted  that it can not be demarcated into black or white. According to her,  we need a delimiter that will allow us to look at the situation from  the outside and to understand whether the movement is moving in the  right direction. "Some proposals on the rights of children from  Armenia have been implemented in part, others have not been  implemented at all." In my opinion, the most important priority is  the creation of a coordinating body for general policy and financing  - this condition has not been fulfilled," Radochai said, and in this  context added that this negatively affects the overall situation.   Moreover, according to the representative of UNICEF, the Armenian  government does not fulfill its obligations to monitor the situation  regarding the observance of the rights of the child, and as an  illustrative example, children from low-income families who do not  attend general education institutions. At the same time, Radochai  expressed conviction that solving problems related to children's  rights requires not so much a finance as a coordinated long-term  approach.

The extraordinary report "On the status of Armenia's fulfillment of  its obligations under the UN Convention and relevant protocols on  observing the rights of children" was drafted with the assistance of  UNICEF. The report covers the period 2013-2017. To prepare the  report, the reports of previous years, reports of public  organizations, including alternative ones, were studied, interviews  and interviews were conducted, judicial acts, administrative  decisions, publications in the media, messages in social networks  were studied. The report is designed to answer the question of  whether the state fulfills its obligations or not, and specific  answers and proposals are given for each sphere.