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Womens Rights in Azerbaijan Recommendations To The Azerbaijan Republic On Further Compliance With CEDAW The Human Rights Center of Baku proposes the following recommendations to promote compliance with CEDAW in the Azerbaijan Republic: 1. Adopt a program of measures to increase the representation of women in government office. These would include:
2. Adopt a package of government measures to guarantee actual free medical care for women in pregnancy and childbirth. These would include:
3. Adopt a government program to combat abortions, which would include:
4. Increase the active participation of women in public life at the national level by:
5. Publish government reports on compliance by the Azerbaijan Republic with international conventions, in the open press, before such reports are reviewed by commissions of the United Nations.
1. We note that the proposal of the Human Rights Center of Baku regarding a government program to discourage abortions through a number of measures, including the prosecution of doctors for illegal abortions. We note that this proposal is made in a context where 1) government policies and social traditions have encouraged women to have many children; 2) abortion is legal, and "illegal" in this context means under unsafe conditions or by untrained personnel or in violation of certain restrictions in the law; 3) a large percentage of women have had repeated abortions under unsafe conditions which has constituted a severe threat to their health. We call on the Azerbaijan Republic to seek the consultation of NGOs in reproductive health care programs, and to permit and promote women's NGOs access to refugee camps and rural areas in particular so that they conduct programs to provide contraceptives and education on family planning.
2. We call on the Azerbaijan Republic to make public its initial compliance report to CEDAW, as well its responses to questioning from experts at the CEDAW session, and its final response. We urge the government to consult with women's NGOs in a timely manner, well before the next government report is completed and presented to CEDAW. 3. While admitting the importance of participation of NGOs in the implementation of CEDAW, Azerbaijani officials at the session, through a variety of tactics, have called into question the reliability of the sources for the information of NGOs. We call on the Azerbaijan government to consult with NGOs on their claims of government inconsistencies with CEDAW obligations, and to investigate such claims rather than attempting to discredit or intimidate NGOs. 4. The League notes the importance of a free press and free flow of information from government offices about matters of public concern. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, several institutions of censorship remain in place in Azerbaijan, and attacks on independent or opposition journalists, as well as harassment of non-state news outlets, are distressingly frequent in Azerbaijan. We note that implementation of CEDAW is vitally connected to the right of the media to cover women's issues freely. Further, women's groups must be allowed to publish information about their activities freely, including their findings of non-compliance of the government regarding guarantees of women's rights. 5. We welcome the formation of an official "State Committee of the Azerbaijan Republic on Women's Problems." However, we note that the very name of the committee signals an attitude that suggests that women have problems, not legitimate issues, and that "women's problems," that is violations of CEDAW, are not public issues for the whole society.
Sources of Information for the Report from the Human Rights Center of Baku
(footnotes relate to the full-text of the Russian-language original, which is available upon request
from the International League for Human Rights):
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