Download:: Coalition announcement on the week of combating homophobia and transphobia
In Armenian society the traditional role of a woman as a mother and wife is very important. However, each role itself is a limitation of personal choice and in our role-oriented society a woman often is not only being deprived of the right of her personal life but also she is being stoned and persecuted as soon as her sexual orientation which is out of the heterosexual perceptions is discovered.
Unfortunately lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LBT) women often are subjected to discrimination, violence, pressures, public concern, family rejection and alienation. In the RA which constitutionally condemned human rights and dignity as the supreme value, they seem to have less rights of being happy and living dignified in a comparison to others.
In closed societies lesbian, bisexual and transgender women are subjected to various negative attitudes, violence and humiliation. Often conservative societies don’t perceive women’s sexual orientation and the right of the freedom of choice, they undertake “corrective” rape methods in order to establish the position of denial regarding one’s sexual identity. The cruelty and frequency of violence against women, including LBT women often is being spread through mass media as a hate speech.
In the frames of the week of combating homophobia and transphobia, Coalition to Stop violence against women highlights and stresses the problem of LBT women who are a target of various types of violence, whose rights of being free of discrimination and cruelty is fixed in a number of international conversation ratified by Armenia, but are not reflected enough in RA legal system.
The Coalition insists that Armenia should undertake proper measures to eliminate all forms of sexual orientation or gender-based discrimination against a person by adopting a comprehensive anti-discrimination law.