Today, the Human Rights Defender of Armenia Kristinne Grigoryan hosted the delegation headed by the Representative of UNICEF in Armenia Christine Weigand.
The Defender welcomed the international partners in the Office of the Human Rights Defender, and underlined that the meeting was a good opportunity to discuss together the joint priorities for the protection of children’s rights under the mandate of the Defender.
In their turn, Ms. Christine Weigand thanked for the opportunity of the meeting, and noted that they highly valued the former experience of cooperation with Ms. Kristinne Grigoryan within the framework of the Council for Juvenile Justice, underlying at the same time the experience of close collaboration between UNICEF and the Office of the Human Rights Defender.
Within the framework of the issues on the agenda, the parties discussed the goal of establishing a youth council adjunct to the Human Rights Defender, the increase of the monitoring capacities of the Office of the Human Rights Defender in the sphere of protection of children’s rights, and the possibilities of developing the http://children.ombuds.am/?lang=en information platform, as a tool of increasing awareness of the protection of children’s rights.
During the meeting, a number of issues related to the joint training of teachers and social workers were discussed, as well as the need to introduce educational programs aimed at eliminating hate speech at an early age.
In the context of improving the national mechanisms for the protection of children’s rights, the Human Rights Defender noted that the evaluation and monitoring mechanisms in the process of developing strategies for various national spheres remain imperfect, and further noted that, as the Human Rights Defender, they will pursue the improvement of the evaluation and monitoring mechanisms in the opinions submitted by the Office of the Human Rights Defender on strategies of various spheres, which will provide the Office of the Human Rights Defender to better function as a monitoring body.
Referring to the experience of the long-term cooperation between the Office of the Human Rights Defender and UNICEF, Ms. Christine Weigand underlined that it was one of the most successful in the world, and expressed their readiness to be more effectively involved in the further development of the capacities of the Office of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia.
Concluding the meeting, the parties agreed to implement various joint programs.
