ArmInfo.The government proposes to criminalize forcing parents to abandon their newborn children through threats, false information, violence, etc.
Minister of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia Zaruhi Batoyan announced this on April 30 during a meeting of the Committee on State and Legal Affairs, proposing to introduce changes in the RA Criminal Code. The Minister said that these phenomena should be punished by a fine of 200 to 500-fold exceeding the minimum wage, arrest for a term of not more than 3 months, or imprisonment for a period of 1 to 4 years. <A more serious liability threatens if the act was committed by a doctor or a group of persons by prior conspiracy. Then the term of imprisonment is punishable by a term of 2 to 5 years. If these actions are committed by an organized group or entail the death of the victim, then the term of imprisonment should be from 4 to 8 years in prison>, Batoyan emphasized.
She noted that this initiative will help combat the trafficking of children. <As you know, last year a number of cases of illegal separation of children from their biological family were recorded. Therefore, we believe that this legislative initiative is extremely important>, the minister emphasized. It should be noted that at the end of last year, the National Security Service of the Republic of Armenia revealed gross violations of Armenian legislation when children were adopted by foreigners in Armenia. Thus, evidence was obtained that two citizens of the Republic of Armenia, using their contacts in one of the republican obstetric institutions, in a number of departments of the Republic of Armenia, as well as in orphanages, with a gross violation of the legislation of Armenia, organized the process of adoption of more than three dozen Armenian children by Italian citizens.
To this end, a number of obstetric institution employees and other employees endowed with managerial powers, by prior conspiracy, intentionally, and for personal gain, from 2016 to 2018, forced more than one dozen women, who have come to the maternity ward of this company, to abandon the children and against their will give consent for an abortion due to social or personal problems, threatening to make their pregnancy public, exaggerating the illness of the child and providing false information in order to exert psychological pressure Moreover, in some cases, they did not disdain to demand bribes from women in labor for rendered medical services.
Having written documents on abandonment of children, most babies with appropriate medical diagnoses were sent to orphanages. A criminal case has been instituted; investigation is underway. In total, five people are involved in the case, including the director of the Republican Institute of Reproductive Health, Perinatology, Obstetrics and Gynecology CJSC> Razmik Abrahamyan, deputy director of the aforementioned medical center Arshak Jerjeryan.