Readers' Forum

A summary of an analysis assessing the performance of Armenia’s current electoral system, focusing on regional representation and discussing the unsuccessful proposal to abandon district-based open lists in 2018 and introducing a new compromise.

This analysis by Harout Manougian assesses the performance of Armenia’s current electoral system in a number of areas, focusing on regional representation. It discusses the unsuccessful proposal to abandon district-based open lists in 2018 and introduces a new compromise between that proposal and the status quo.

The experience of combating the coronavirus pandemic in Armenia can and should serve as an important foundation to develop long-term and institutionalized mechanisms of crisis management with the support of Diasporan experts and professionals.

Armenia-Diaspora relations must be defined through state-centered institutions and transnational governance.This is a primer of a recently published White Paper on Armenia-Diaspora relations by Nerses Kopalyan.

When parents have a child born with a disability, it is usually healthcare professionals who often apply social pressure on them to reject their baby. This is a primer of EVN Report’s White Paper, “Retraining Healthcare Professionals: The Practice of Placing Children with Disabilities in Institutions in Armenia.”

With no comprehensive environmental curriculum in Armenian schools, individual teachers and NGOs have taken it upon themselves to educate the youth about pressing environmental issues from climate change to recycling.

Abandoned children with disabilities are placed in special orphanages and upon reaching adulthood, mental institutions. Jermik Ankyun is working to pull people with disabilities from these hopeless facilities, settling them in loving forever homes.

How should Armenia-Diaspora relations develop moving forward? This new White Paper argues that relations must be defined through state-centered institutions and transnational governance.

What motivates people to give of themselves and their time in the pursuit of helping others and their communities? Three women explain.

What does it mean to be a volunteer in a country and a society that is vastly different from your own? Sofia Bergmann reflects on her experience in Armenia.

The illegal adoption of newborns in Armenia has always been talked about behind closed doors. These cases are now being revealed as state bodies and law enforcement agencies crack down on those involved in the trafficking of children. Many believe it is only the tip of the iceberg.

When parents have a child born with a disability, it is usually healthcare professionals who often apply social pressure on them to reject their baby. This White Paper argues in favor of targeted intervention, that is, retraining medical staff, among other things, about their responsibility to communicate with parents professionally and without bias.

Every child has the right to live with a family, whether it’s a biological, adoptive, foster or guardian family. However, every child also has the right to live a life of dignity and tranquility. Kushane Chobanyan looks at some of the successful and not-so-successful cases of foster families in Armenia.

Why do people volunteer, how is volunteer work regulated and what are the key issues the volunteering sector faces in the Republic of Armenia? This is a primer of EVN Report’s White Paper, “Volunteering in Armenia: Key Issues and Challenges.”

Protecting the most vulnerable in society is one of the most important roles of the state. There are people, however, like Mira Antonyan, the director of FAR’s Children Support Center Foundation, who for many years, along with others, shouldered that burden.

Transitional Justice is a special form of justice, applied temporarily in countries where there have been massive abuses of human rights, usurption of power or genocide. It can also applied in countries like Armenia, where important political and social transition has taken place, where at the same time, there needs to be a break with the past.

Nine centuries ago, Armenian scholar Mkhitar Gosh enshrined the rights of children in the Armenian national discourse. Protecting the rights of children, ensuring their care, education and health is the responsibility of the family and the state. Today, as in the past, it is also the love of others that can make all the difference.

Every child has the right to live in a family. Today, more than half of all children in orphanages have disabilities. This a primer of EVN Report’s White Paper about specialized foster care for children with disabilities .

EVN Report discusses the policy of deinstitutionalizing orphanages and providing care for children with disabilities within the context of their right to family life with Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Zhanna Andreasyan.

No child should be abandoned and no child should live in an institution. This is a story of a group of mothers whose concern, love and compassion is changing the lives of children with disabilities and their families.

A child’s right to family life is enshrined in Armenian and international legal documents and considered a priority in Armenia’s 2017-2021 Strategic Plan on the Protection of the Rights of the Child. Here is EVN Report's White Paper about specialized foster care for children with disabilities.

The Kotayk SOS Children’s Village was established in 1988 following the Spitak earthquake to offer immediate aid to those children who had lost their parents. Today, over 30 years later, SOS Children’s Villages continue to support children and their families in three locations across Armenia.

Transitional justice is a form of exceptional justice, since it is introduced for a specific period of time to deal with exceptional circumstances. This primer is based on Dr. Nerses Kopalyan’s White Paper, Transitional Justice Agenda for the Republic of Armenia and is a summary of the key points of transitional justice.

Volunteerism not only contributes to the social wellbeing of the volunteer, but also greatly benefits the communities and societies where it takes place, ensuring sustainable capacity development and building social capital. In Armenia, there is currently no legal framework regulating volunteerism.

As an instrument of transitional justice, vetting is designed to “cleanse” state institutions that are tainted by systemic corruption, nepotism, and incompetence. Vetting of personnel is the first step toward the broader goal of institutional reform, writes Dr. Nerses Kopalyan.

Should Armenia implement the tools of transitional justice? This White Paper, developed by Dr. Nerses Kopalyan is a comprehensive transitional justice agenda for the Republic of Armenia.