UNFPA and UNDPI Armenia organize a special event devoted to the
International Women’s Day

armradio.am
10.03.2009 15:05

Today UNFPA and UNDPI Armenia held a special event devoted to the
International Women’s Day as part of the UN Secretary-General’s `UNiTe
to End Violence against Women’ global campaign. In recognition of the
urgent need to bring women and men together in this endeavor, the theme
of this year’s International Women’s Day is Women and Men United to End
Violence against Women and Girls.

The event was opened with greetings on behalf of UNDPI and UNFPA during
which the messages of Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, and
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, UNFPA Executive Director on the occasion of March
8, the International Women’s Day were presented.

In his message the UN Secretary-General stressed the importance of
joining efforts worldwide and taking a firm stand to eliminate violence
against women, "We must work together to state loud and clear that
violence against women will not be tolerated" he pointed out in his
speech. In her turn, Ms. Thoraya Obaid urged men and boys to use their
influence for positive change as well as called on authorities to
promote public dialogue and open debate and to support government
efforts in all countries to enact and enforce laws to bring justice to
offenders, and to provide health services and social support to
survivors.

Following the opening of the event, the guest speakers took the floor
to share with the audience the joint 3rd and 4th Periodic Report of
Republic of Armenia to the CEDAW Committee on the status of the CEDAW
convention implementation. Guest speakers featured Ms. Lala Ghazaryan,
representative of the RoA Ministry of Labour and Social Issues, the
leading state body working in the field of family, women and children
issues; Mr. Ashot Yesayan, representative of the Prosecutor’s Office,
and Ms. Jemma Hasratyan, the President of `Armenian Association of
Women with University Education’ DPI-Associated NGO and partnering with
UNFPA `Combating Gender Based Violence in the South Caucasus’ project.

The event rounded up with screening of two documentary movies covering
issues of violence against women in Turkey (`Killing in the name of
Honour’) and in Austria (`Showing the Red Card’). The mentioned movies
were selected from `Women on the Front Line’ movie series prepared by
Dev TV non-profit association of media professionals in collaboration
with UN agencies including UNFPA and UNIFEM, donor countries,
non-governmental organizations and other partners that provided the
information and support for the investigative reports of the mentioned
documentaries.