“First News and Analyses” continues its interview series with the representatives of UN agencies in Armenia. This time we had the opportunity to talk to the assistant representative of UN Population Fund in Armenia, Mr. Garik Hayrapetyan.
Mr. Hayrapetyan, we know that UN Population Fund has been in Armenia since 1999 and had three mandated areas that it focused on, which were gender equality, reproductive health and rights, population and development strategies. What have been the achievements in the above mentioned areas in these 13 years?
Thank you very much for coming and thank you very much for this interview. We are proud to announce that UNFPA has some contribution to the achievements of the Republic of Armenia in all three fields you mentioned, and in particular in the field of reproductive health and rights. I think, the most important achievement that we can mention is that UNFPA activities in the country helped to sharply decrease maternal mortality rates in Armenia. As we can see from the results of the last demographic and health survey, we have considerably decreased the maternal mortality rates in Armenia. If, for example, in 2000s maternal mortality ratio was around 70 mothers per 100,000 live births than today in Armenia it is only about six to seven mothers per every100,000. You can see the biggest achievement. And in the field of gender rights and gender equality we have been working with both government as well as with the non-governmental sector and the biggest achievement I can mention is that we have come to the point when one law is already in parliament. It is the law on equal rights and equal opportunities which is waiting to be accepted by the Parliament. And the second law which is now under the drafting is the law on domestic violence, which we hope will be finalized by the end of the year, and next year will be sent to the parliament for approval.
And what are the main priorities of the Fund right now?
United Nations Fund for Population revised its priorities last year and we have decided globally that the main priority area of UNFPA should become the maternal health and reproductive health and rights. It doesn't mean that we are going to abandon other fields, like gender, youth or population and development, but we have to start looking at these fields through the prism of reproductive health and rights. I think it is still very important for us to continue to collect data on all population issues, for example migration, aging, sex selective abortions and all that type of data which is lacking in the country. This will make possible that all the policies and strategies in the country are evidence based and based on real situation and with the real understanding of the situation.
Having in mind the role of women and girls in the Armenian culture, how is it difficult to tackle the problem of gender inequality through the UNFPA policies?
That’s an important question. As any other country with strong paternalistic mentality, Armenia is also facing the challenge of bringing women’s rights at the same level as men’s rights. First of all, let me say that we are not the last one in the list of countries where the equality is not very equal, if we can put it that way. Of course there is a lot of place for improvement and we are working for that. Yes it is hard to make people think that women should have the same saying in the family, for example, or that a woman also needs to develop her career and achieve something in life. We think that a woman is a family keeper and should nourish the family and there is of course nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to cut all other possibilities for women. The issue is to leave the choice for her. If she wants to be a family cherishing mother and wife, let her be, but if she also wants to incorporate her personal achievements and development into that family life, that also needs to be ensured. She should have all the opportunities and equal rights for that.
Do you think that in the near future it will be possible to have equal rights for women, because doesn’t this seem that you are fighting against the society as it is not ready to change yet?
No I don’ think we are fighting against the society. The society is changing all the time. If you look back to the history, you can see how the attitude has been changed. As you said, it is an issue of change. It needs time, it needs explanation and clarification. We need to show the positive sides of that. Because, for example, one of the most important things that we are lacking went there is no equality is that we are having more that 50 percent of population women, which means that if we don’t provide them with equal rights and opportunities, we leave 50 percent of our population out of economic activities that they can produce economic wealth and make our lives better , our country more developed an d stronger. So why to lose this opportunity? This is just something that needs to be brought to the seen, discussed that people start thinking about that. I think that it is obvious that there is nothing wrong with this. There is just the issue of accepting that this change is not going to be the end of the world.
What has been the impact of UNFPA in fighting against violence against women in Armenia?
We have been the first one to implement nationwide survey on gender-based violence in Armenia. In 2009 we have conducted the survey and about 4000 households participated in it and 2700 women from these 4000 households participated in the survey. It was the first formally, officially accepted survey on the issue of gender, family-based violence in Armenia. I think this was an achievement because even agreeing to that already means accepting the problem. You cannot solve the problem without accepting it. If you don’t see the problem, you don’t need to solve it. This was a very important think that I think we have achieved and was clearly attributed to UNFPA activities in the country.
We have already talked a little bit about national legislation. What are your expectations about filling the gaps in the national legislation especially on violence against women, because as you know domestic violence in particular is a huge concern in Armenia?
We have gathered the data, the government accepted the data and so we have the evidence. Based on that two national plans on gender equality and on gender-based violence were already accepted for 2011 to 2015 and the law on equal rights and opportunities has already been adopted and sent to the parliament as I have already mentioned. Now the government on its own initiative initiated the drafting of the law on gender based violence. I think you can clearly see the shift. And also we have very active civil society in this field, we see lots of women movements, women are fighting for their rights; they are trying to explain why their rights are important. And much more people started to talk about it. Even on TV on different channels in few months you can see different TV programs, on gender on gender-based violence which previously, three or 4 years ago, was not even possible to imagine in this country.
In our country we have a problem of migration as too many people migrate every year and at the same time we have sex selective abortions which results in gender imbalance in the country , how to tackle this problem?
Let me first clarify a bit. At this particular moment we don't have a big gender imbalance in this country most probably because of the reason you mentioned. We have high rates of migration, particularly labor migration and, in particular, man labor migration. That's why the balance is more or less around the point of equality. But you have very timely mentioned the sex selective abortions. I think we are going to face the consequences of that problem in the near future. Armenia, as you may know have been recognized by Council of Europe as one of the four countries among the member countries where sex selective abortions or so called sex imbalance has become pretty high. As for today, the birth ratio in Armenia is 114/115 boys per 100 girls. This is not normal. The normal ratio is 105 boys to 100 girls. And this five percent of boys are born more because boys are less likely to get to the age of reproduction because of being weaker as a fetus or for having more risky life before getting to 18 years old. So this is the way nature balances the gender imbalance. But 115 is already too much and we started to see this imbalance in 1993 when the technologies have become accessible for Armenians to be able to identify the gender of the fetus. There are also two very important reasons for that. Second is the sharp decrease in birth rates and we know that in comparison to 1980s birth rate has dropped more than twice in Armenia . The third one is son preference. In 2011 we have implemented a survey again and it showed that the son preference in Armenia is in average about 6 times more than girl preference. So starting from 1993, we saw the difference and as of today if you look at the statistics, among the children born from 1993 to 2010 there are around 50000 more boys born than girls. This means in few years this imbalance will be seen. What will be the consequences of that, a lot of different scenarios could be there. We are going to also release another survey based on the study of the last year survey which will show the impact of sex selective abortions on demographic situation and how it will affect the demographic situation. And then we will understand what our steps should be so we start fighting and in the future we have a balanced society and we don't have more men leaving the country in order to find women.
In general how would you evaluate the impact of UNFPA in Armenia?
Well, that would be a subjective evaluation but I hope that we have contributed to Armenia's development and we have been very specific in contributing with our activities in the fields of reproductive health and particularly maternal mortality. We have been one of the pioneers bringing this change or shift of mind in the field of gender. We are also proud to be the data gathering agency which provides evidence for all those important and priority topics in the country which are knocking to our door. This was done in order to understand challenges and be able to take the step that will be the most effective in solving them.
And how would you evaluate the political and economic will of the Armenian government in cooperating with the Fund?
Government was always very positive in cooperation with UN starting from the very first day of UN being established in the country. Very important think that I want to mention here is that the government as well as the society as well as UN start to understand better the problems of this country and support in solving them. We always can discuss how effective the support is , could have it been done better, or was it enough but overall I would say that we have a good understanding of main priority areas and have better understanding of solving them all together.
How would you evaluate the society's commitment? At 1-10 scale what's our grade for performance?
General public is still not ready to move towards new ideas and development, but the active part of the society are the champions in bringing the change and they are the change agency in this country. I hope that we can work more with this segment of our population so that we strengthen them more because even though they have become strong and have changed during these years but more things needs to be done to make them even stronger agent for this country.
