OSCE Office helps discuss challenges facing women lawyers in Azerbaijan

BAKU, 28 November 2006 - Challenges facing women lawyers in Azerbaijan and ways of enhancing their role in society were the main topics of an OSCE-organized international conference which ended in Baku today.

Participants at the two-day event discussed lobbying efforts by civil society actors for gender equality and domestic violence laws, as well as legal protection for women victims and witnesses, and ways to encourage women to participate more broadly in legal associations, businesses and government.

"In Azerbaijan, almost 50 per cent of law students are women, but they represent less than 5 per cent of the Collegiums. If this imbalance is addressed, Azerbaijan will benefit from a more active participation of women in the legal sector," said Ingrid Gossinger, Democratization Officer at the OSCE Office in Baku.

She added that discussions at the conference suggested that many women lawyers seemed to be unaware of the existence of numerous private legal consulting firms in Baku dominated by men. "Women should be encouraged to take advantage of opportunities in the private sector that deals with business, property and contract laws," she said.

The conference was attended by over 150 women lawyers, legal experts, law students, representatives of the State Committee for Family, Women and Children's Issues, the diplomatic corps, civil society and the media. Experts from Austria, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, Germany, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, United Kingdom and the United States also took part in the conference.

The event was jointly organized by the OSCE Office in Baku, the American Bar Association/Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative and the NGO Eurasian Lawyers Association.