OSCE trains trainers on women's rights in Armenia

YEREVAN, 2 September 2002 - An OSCE training session on women's rights brought together 22 young women from all 11 marzes (regions in Armenia) representing a wide spectrum of society. Representatives of local authorities, academics, teachers, students and researchers who have taken part in the training are expected to conduct seminars on women's rights in their respective regions in the coming months.

Last week's training, conducted by two Polish trainers from the National Women's Information Center in Warsaw, provided theoretical and practical knowledge. The program started with an introduction to basic international documents on human rights within the women's rights context and touched upon the most common violations, such as trafficking and domestic violence.

The initiative is implemented by the Association of Women with University Education in co-operation with the OSCE Office in Yerevan, within the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) project on "Training of Trainers on Women's Rights, Gender Equality and Women's Participation in Society". The project aims to raise awareness and to build training capacity on lobbying and advocacy on women's rights and equality issues between men and women in the regions of Armenia.

Participants are tasked to prepare an outline of their training programme, which will be discussed and exercised with the assistance of the Polish experts in the course of a second session to be held in October 2002. ODIHR, The OSCE Office in Yerevan and the Association of Women with University Education will hold a programme evaluation workshop in December 2002 to assess and discuss the implementation.

The OSCE Office in Yerevan was established in February 2000 to promote the implementation of OSCE principles and commitments as well as the co-operation of the Republic of Armenia within the OSCE framework, in all OSCE dimensions, including the human, political, economic and environmental aspects of security and stability.