Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Thousands of Azerbaijani women were subjected to inconceivable insult and violence during the armed aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan back in 1990s.

Hijran Huseynova, Chairperson of the State Committee for Family, Women, and Children's Affairs made the statement on a conference titled "Say NO to Violence against women" in Baku on November 21.

She further said that still there is no information about the fate of missing Azerbaijani women, who were captivated by Armenians.

"This is the cruelest example of violence and our people experienced this," Huseynova said.

The bloody war, which flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims against Azerbaijan led to occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions by Armenian armed forces.

In a cruel war more than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities, while over 4,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis were taken captive, hostage, or went missing as a result of the war.

The majority of those captured during the hostilities are children, elderly people and women.

An analysis of data received by the Azerbaijani State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons revealed that 554 people (104 women, 449 men) were found to have either been killed in captivity or died of various causes. Among them, only the names of 137 people are known, while 75 others have not yet been identified.

Armenia repeatedly refused to submit information regarding the fate of thousands of Azerbaijanis who gone missing or taken hostage.

Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Bahar Muradova, for her part, said that to prevent violence against women, the legislative base should be further improved.

Head of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations Mubariz Gurbanli, in turn, said that violence against women is observed not only in Azerbaijan, but also in other countries of the world.

"In various parts of the world there is still a fact of psychological, physical and sexual violence against women. To prevent this, it's necessary to bring to the forefront their right to education and independence," he added.

The EU pays particular attention to this issue and takes a very hard line, stressed Malena Mard, the Head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan. "Violence against women occurs in every country of the world. This must be eradicated," she noted.

The conference is jointly organized by the State Committee for Family, Women and Children, the UN Population Fund, UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

At the conference winners of the competition for the preparation of a script for a social video, implemented within the framework of cooperation between the State Committee for Family, Women and Children, and the ASAN FM State Agency for Citizens' Service and Social Innovations under the Azerbaijani President were awarded.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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