Azerbaijan's State Committee on Family, Women and Children and the OSCE Office in Baku held a conference on domestic violence on Wednesday.
The conference analysed and discussed various aspects of domestic violence in Azerbaijan, including a proposed law on the prevention of domestic violence.
The head of the OSCE office in Baku, Ali Bilge Cankorel, said “ten years ago, the UN General Assembly designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. We chose this date for this conference to raise awareness about domestic violence matters in Azerbaijan, because although anyone can suffer from domestic violence, the overwhelming majority of its victims are women and children.”
The deputy speaker of Azerbaijan's parliament, the Milli Majlis, Bahar Muradova said Azerbaijan needs to adopt a law to regulate domestic violence issues.
The chairwoman of the State Committee on the Family, Women and Children, Hijran Huseynova, said that thanks to initiative of national leader Heydar Aliyev much has been done in Azerbaijan to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women.
She said that Azerbaijan's first lady, the president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, MP Mehriban Aliyeva, attaches special importance to increasing the role of women in society.
The chairwoman of the Milli Majlis human rights committee, Rabiyyat Aslanova, said the elimination of violence against women is an urgent issue across the world.
She stressed the need to adopt a law to eliminate violence against women.
Azerbaijan's human rights commissioner, Elmira Suleymanova, said that tackling violence against women will allow women to use their capabilities more effectively.
The OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights provided expert opinion on the proposed bill.