“He was a very jealous man, very temperamental and maybe he even had psychological problems. I had no right to say anything, to take any decisions. I always had to avoid him in the house, be in another room. He would beat me in front of the children, and beat the children too,” tells D.M., an Armenian housewife identified by initials in a recent international report.

“I’m very ashamed that someone could use force against me. That’s what I always said to the counselor when I was at the shelter: I’m tortured by one thing, I’ve got one basic psychological problem. How did I allow someone to treat me like that? That will haunt me for the rest of my life, how did I allow that to happen? The point is, I didn’t have a choice,” anther woman, P.N, a victim of domestic violence, tells her story, according to a report published by a leading global watchdog, Amnesty International, this week.

The 52-page report quotes an Armenian folk saying “A woman is like wool; the more you beat her, the softer she’ll be” and studies at length sexual, domestic, psychological and other kinds of violence against women in Armenia. The research reveals that more than a quarter of women in Armenia have faced physical violence at the hands of husbands or other family members. A large part of women is subject to one kind of violence or another.

“Violence against women in Armenia often takes place within the broader context of the extended family. Extended rather than nuclear families are the norm, particularly in rural areas, where several
generations may cohabit in the same household,” the report says. “Nearly 66 percent of respondents to the survey reported having been subjected to psychological violence; 95 percent of respondents believed that psychological violence is as damaging as physical violence.”

London-based Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org) is a global movement of 2.2 million people in more than 150 countries and territories who campaign to end grave abuses of human rights.

The organization says that their vision is for every person to enjoy all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards.

“No Pride In Silence: Countering Violence in the Family in Armenia”, is based on Amnesty International’s own research, conducted during three field visits by researchers to Armenia in 2007-2008.

According to the organization’s experts, violence in Armenian families takes different forms – from isolation and psychological pressures to physical and sexual violence.

“The incidents of both psychological and physical violence reported in the self-administered sections with the lists of types of violence and abuse revealed an entirely different picture [from initial
responses that respondents had not suffered domestic violence] in which nearly 30 percent reported having been the victim of physical abuse. The problem may be that Armenian women are unable to define domestic violence and abuse as general concepts,” the report says.

“Strong family bonds are an integral aspect of Armenian culture and women who report violence are seen as threatening the family and are pressured to keep domestic violence a private ‘family matter’. Women who try to report violence in the family often experience social isolation, as friends, relatives and neighbors reject them,” says the report. “Even when a woman does report rape to the police, she faces ingrained attitudes that she is to blame.”

Amnesty International says that despite the fact that a number of social centers and shelters have been operating in Armenia since 2002, a majority of them are run by non-governmental organizations and are reliant on intermittent funding. It says most of them have been forced to close or reduce their operations in recent years due to lack of funds. Therefore, the organization considers that assistance provided to victims of domestic violence in Armenia is “far from being sufficient.”

“A law on domestic violence must be a functional law. It needs extensive back-up and support to
ensure that the law is rooted in social recognition of domestic violence as a crime, as well as on
paper.”

The report makes a number of recommendations to Armenian authorities, including executing a multi-layered approach taking in legislative, institutional and public education strategies. It calls for the explicit criminalization of domestic violence through the adoption of
a specific law, and for the introduction of a coordinated cross-agency approach to the problem, including police, health workers, legal aid centers and the judiciary, shelters and crisis centers, and
women’s NGOs.

“Given the deeply rooted social attitudes that see violence against women as a ‘family matter’ not for public discussion” , Amnesty International’s experts recommend “public awareness and education measures emphasizing that violence against women is not a private issue on which silence should be preserved, but a widespread criminal offence and human rights violation.”