The first session of the Public Council on “Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Asylum Seekers, Forced Displaced Persons and Refugees” under the RA Human Rights Defender took place in Yerevan.
“Armenpress”According to the report, in the opening speech, Human Rights Defender Anahit Manasyan considered the protection of the rights of forcibly displaced refugees as one of the priorities of the Ombudsman’s office, not only in the context of immediate response to certain problems, but also from the point of view of prevention, protection and promotion of violations of their rights.
“Setting this as a priority, we are also using several new tools and formats, which the Defender’s institution has not used before in this area. One of them is the formation of this public council under the Human Rights Defender. First of all, I want to note that the council includes civil society organizations and independent experts who deal with the issues related to the sector,” said Manasyan, emphasizing the inclusion of such organizations in the public council, which were formed by the people representing the interested group.
According to Manasyan, there are a lot of reforms and problems being solved in the sector, however, at the same time, there are also certain problems.
The human rights defender emphasized that in a number of cases, it became obvious that sometimes applications are received when the problems have already been solved, which is a consequence of lack of communication.
“Information is still not transferred at a proper level. Many people have the impression that the problem, for example, has not been solved. This proves that we, definitely, all of us, should really be able to make the voices of political society and independent experts and refugees, as well as forcibly displaced persons, heard all the time, and use different formats to involve them in decision-making processes. I am glad that we are trying to make that format a reality,” Manasyan said.
Monika Sandri, the head of the Armenian office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, welcomed the initiative and expressed her belief that the Public Council for the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Asylum Seekers, Forced Displaced Persons and Refugees, within its expert and advisory role, will support the UNHCR office to outline the newly emerging problems of refugees and offer effective solutions.
“I am convinced that this new dialogue platform can promote meaningful discussions, speed up the integration process of refugees, including their access to education, support, and employment,” Sandri said.
RA Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Armen Ghazaryan emphasized the creation of the council and noted that it expresses the approach of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in terms of creating the widest possible partnerships.
“Our work, aimed at protecting the rights of asylum seekers, refugees and forcibly displaced persons, has always been carried out with the constant participation of public and international organizations, our partner state agencies, the Human Rights Defender, and I think that this has given a certain positive result,” said Ghazaryan, emphasizing that any policy developed by the department, aimed at asylum seekers, refugees and forcibly displaced persons, is based on the idea of the supremacy of law.
Nelli Davtyan, head of the migration and citizenship service of the RA Ministry of Internal Affairs, emphasized the importance of as many contacts as possible with the interested groups, from the point of view of highlighting the existing problems.
According to his observation, very often, as a result of non-institutional contacts, important decisions are made, thanks to which certain changes occur in the lives of the beneficiaries.
“I mean, all kinds of contacts are important, and if they are institutionalized and consistent, and we will now agree on some mechanism together to address step by step and then monitor the results, then the platform cannot fail to be effective,” said Davtyan.
Referring to the statistics of the sector, the head of the migration and citizenship service of the RA Ministry of Internal Affairs informed that, in particular, asylum applications were usually up to 250 annually until 2022 inclusive.
According to him, due to the Russian-Ukrainian war, that number is many times higher for the 4th year in a row, and Ukrainian citizens, for example, do not make up a large proportion.
Davtyan added that after the deportation of 115,000 people from Karabakh in 2023, about 39,000 applications for RA citizenship have been received. During this period, citizenship was granted to 27,550 people displaced from Karabakh. In addition, 12,000 minors were registered in RA.
