A/HRC/43/44/Add.1
meeting that the Special Rapporteur held with a group of farmers was a clear reflection of
this, as it was only attended by men and with no female representation.
102. Female representation in public and political institutions is very low, which appears
to contribute to this ongoing marginalization. Only 16.8 per cent of seats in the parliament
are occupied by women.47 With some notable exceptions, the vast majority of the meetings
the Special Rapporteur held with government officials were conducted by men.
103. Globally, domestic violence is one of the obstacles to women’s access to food in
family situations. It is a continuous problem in Azerbaijan, as in many other countries, and
one of the legal remedies is to ratify the 2011 Council of Europe Convention on Preventing
and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. Moreover, training
programmes for judges and the security forces, educational and legal policies, and the
establishment of shelters for women in need throughout the country are important steps that
should be taken.
B.
Children
104. On the outskirts of Baku, in Bilgah, the Special Rapporteur visited public orphanage
No. 11, which is under the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. There are 210
children at the orphanage, of whom 90 per cent have disabilities.48 The Special Rapporteur
was positively surprised at the infrastructure, organization and services (psychologists,
speech therapists, physiotherapists, music and arts therapies, etc.) provided by this State
institution. She commended the Government for its efforts to provide opportunities for
children with disabilities to learn and interact with their peers without disabilities.
Integrating students can be beneficial for both groups of students, as well as for their
parents and teachers.
105. The majority of children in orphanage No. 11 had been placed in out-of-home care
because of socioeconomic hardship, divorce or inadequate or lack of family support
services, and/or at the specific request of the parents. The institution also provides a daycare centre from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for children whose parents cannot take care of them
during the day.
106. During her visit to the regions, the Special Rapporteur was alerted to the fact that
there are significant numbers of children involved in informal work in the harvesting of tea,
tobacco and cotton, including in hazardous situations. Nobody was able to provide precise
data on the magnitude and relevance of child labour.
107. The Special Rapporteur was concerned at the lack of an effective system for
collecting disaggregated data on infant and child mortality, child malnutrition, children with
disabilities, and child labour, sexual abuse and exploitation. That constitutes a severe
obstacle to ensuring the development of targeted policies and social protection programmes
aimed at supporting children.
C.
Internally displaced persons
108. The region of Nagorno-Karabakh is the subject of an unresolved dispute with
Armenia. As a result of the conflict in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region, it is
reported that over 30,000 people on both sides were killed. 49 Following the conflict,
Armenia gained control over seven Azerbaijani districts adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh and
approximately 1 million Azerbaijanis were forced to flee their homes.50 Living conditions
47
48
49
50
Government of Azerbaijan, voluntary national review, 2017, p. 12.
Information provided by the Head of orphanage No. 11
See Ishaan Tharoor, “The crisis over Nagorno-Karabakh, explained”, The Washington Post (5 April
2016).
See UNHCR, “Azerbaijan: analysis of gaps in the protection of internally displaced persons (IDPs)”
(October 2009).
17
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