Life became hell for 25-year-old Armine the day when her mother made her marry her own (the mother’s) lover, who was 18 years older than Armine.

“He [her husband] used to throw me on the sofa and beat me with a metal pipe, and to kick me wearing rubber boots. He used to pull his 80-year-old mother by her hair, hitting her head on the walls and crying – go and bring my vodka,” recalls Armine Sargsyan, mother of three sons from Stepanavan, Lori province.

After a recurrent beating Armine was not taken back into her parent’s house. The young woman eventually turned to the orphanage in Stepanavan with her children. One of the employees of the orphanage advised her to call the hotline of Paros "Lighthouse" Armenian Charitable Foundation’s Abused Women Shelter in Armenia and tell her story. (The hotline number 20-80 of the foundation is registered in all departments of the RA Police, as well as in Women Resource centers in provinces).

The shelter receives women who are either pregnant or have children under two-years old with them. The women live here up to two years.

Head of the foundation Naira Muradyan says that their foundation is the only center where women are sheltered with their children. The foundation has made an exception for Armine allowing her to bring two of her children to the shelter with her. One of her children is three years old, the other – two years old. Her eldest son lives in Stepanavan’s orphanage.

Armine’s story is not unique. The violence, beating and humiliation run all through the life stories of the shelter’s women. Six women and eight children reside in the center (which has been running since last June), some 15 kilometers from Yerevan. Lighthouse Foundation was established in 2006, by American-Armenian benefactors Zuhrab and Seta Ghazarian, who before the establishment of the foundation had realized a number of charitable programs in Armenia.

The building of the shelter is provided with a security system. Women here are taught computer skills, knitting and English language courses are held for them. Sessions with a psychologist is mandatory. The women are allowed to go out, however only after they are registered in the special records book.

Another shelter for women is offered by Women’s Rights Center NGO in Armenia. There is no government-funded shelter in Armenia; there is not a law on family violence either. Such cases are examined under the RA Criminal Code.

Susanna Vardanyan, head of Women’s Rights Center NGO, says that in 2007-2009 corresponding experts and their center drafted a law on family violence, which was submitted to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia, however, it is not adopted by now.

Last month, a big clamor was raised over Davit Ziroyan (who severely beat his two wives – the first from whom he was divorced, and his second) and his mother Haykanush Mikaelyan. The mother and son were constantly severely beating, torturing and threatening Ziroyan’s first and second wives in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

“I want them to be punished, but as of now our law does nothing [in this respect]. I even do not know what to expect from our law,” says Ziroyan’s second wife Mariam Gevorgyan.

A lawsuit has been filed against Ziroyan, however, he has not been sentenced. The prosecution was followed by an amnesty. The mother-in-law (Haykanush Mikaelyan) was detained in Saint Petersburg and brought to Armenia. The case is in the process of preliminary investigation.

A 24-hour National Hotline is working at the Women’s Rights Center NGO. There are hotlines in Gavar, Vanadzor, Ijevan and Kapan, too.

There were 2,302 calls to the National Hotline in 2011. In January-September last year, 1,325 visits were registered in the Sexual Assault Crisis Center of Yerevan.

Police Colonel Nelly Duryan, deputy head of the Police's 3rd Investigation Department (of Juvenile Affairs) in Armenia, says that statistical data cannot present the whole picture of violence properly. Violence committed in families usually is not reported.

Mariam Hayrapetyan, 34, who lives in Lighthouse-Paros for three months, says that she is like a frozen meat which melts gradually. She has been keeping silence for many years while she bore her gambler husband’s beating and insults. Her two-year old daughter Anushik suffered with her mother.

“I have lost my second baby while being pregnant with it because of his beating. When I told him that I wanted to get divorced, he attacked me with a knife. Once he was taking Anushik to pay off a mortgage. I have hardly managed to save the child,” Mariam recalls. She was sure that her husband would “give” their daughter to a creditor as some sort of collateral until one day he could find money from some place and pay off the recurrent debt.

In 2010, Zaruhi Petrosyan’s criminal case also got attention. The young woman was subjected to violence by her husband and mother-in-law. On October 1, 2010, after her husband’s severe beating Petrosyan died in a hospital.

After this incident the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Women in Armenia, consisting of seven non-governmental organizations was founded, aiming to make the public aware of family violence and its consequences, trying to prevent new cases of violence in the future.

Head of Lighthouse-Paros Foundation Naira Muradyan says that they also teach their women to be good mothers, to be responsible for their own children.

“Most of our beneficiaries are orphanage alumnae. Their mothers were also from orphanages. And now their children are about to end up in an orphanage. There is an open chain, which must be solved,” Muradyan says.

Lighthouse Foundation improves the women’s social state; it takes care of the settlement of their life in the future after the women leave the shelter.

“Very often we rent an apartment for them, or we give them money for each month, starting with $50. By the time, they find a job, they stand on their own feet and try to start a new life,” Muradyan says.