PETITION

To the foreign embassies and international organizations in Armenia,

international human rights organizations

 

Yerevan, Armenia

September 4,  2009 

 

We, the undersigned civil society organizations would like to draw your attention to recent human rights abuses in Armenia in respect with violation of children’s rights, suppression of freedom of expression and failure to ensure fair trial.

 

During April-June 2008 a group of young people worked as volunteers in Nubarashen Special School N11. The school  was the beneficiary of the UN’s Ten Best Schools project. Young volunteers were engaged in renovating the computer room, teaching schoolchildren various subjects and skills, recording audio-books, etc. During their work and interaction with children the young people observed and heard about multiple problems and abuses, including the following:

 

• The mentioned school is an establishment intended exclusively for children with special needs. In fact, it enrolled a number of healthy children, who at times of medical checks were instructed to pretend as ones with certain disabilities;
• Children complained about the quality of food and were constantly underfed often preferring a piece of bread over the proposed meals. Leftovers were used for feeding the school principal’s pigs, turkeys and dogs being kept on the territory of the school;
• Sanitary situation in the school was unsatisfactory. Children were taking bath once in 1 or even in 2 weeks;
• School principal and other personnel used child labor in their housework;
• Children were often treated brutally, sometimes being subject to physical punishments by school personnel;
• There were several cases of sexual harassment by one of the school’s teachers.  
  
  

Young volunteers working at school made the above-mentioned information public. In November 2008, there were a number of video materials broadcasted by the Public Television H1 about problems revealed in the school. As a result some of the raised issues were addressed – children started taking bath more frequently and the quality of meals was improved. The teacher blamed for sexual abuse chose to leave the school to engage in creative work - writing. Nevertheless, the issue of harassment of children was not addressed.

 

In November 2008, the group of volunteers held a meeting with Bagrat Yesayan, then Deputy Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Armenia and Stepan Aslanyan, a member of the National Assembly of Republic of Armenia, both representing different parties of the ruling coalition. Subsequently, there was no adequate reaction by the National Assembly and the government. Meanwhile, by the end of 2008, the contract with journalist – the author of developed video materials - was discontinued and her programs were closed on H1 referring to the economic crisis.

 

Three months after the broadcast of video materials the police opened a criminal case. Pre-investigation of it was accompanied with violation of procedural requirements. Police broke the required timelines for opening the case and included unjustified extensions. It concentrated on the testimony of only one witness, who under pressure from her teachers and parents was forced to withdraw her depositions, while completely disregarding the second testimony. Volunteers engaged in proceeding as witnesses were not duly notified about the details of the criminal case. Their interrogations were accompanied by psychological pressure and derisions by policemen.

 

From the very first day, pre-investigation was biased and concentrated towards shifting the blame to the group of volunteers. In August 2009, the mentioned case was actually turned against the leader of the volunteer group Mariam Sukhudyan, who was charged with a false report with a prospect of imprisonment for up to 5 years. The predisposed attitude towards the case was culminated by the statement of the head of police made at a press-conference on August 21, 2009, who clearly violated the principle of the presumption of innocence.

 

In summary, since the day of raising the issue of ill-treatment and sexual harassment in Nubarashen Special School N11 there was no proper reaction by Armenian state institutions, in spite of the fact that similar situation exists in other similar boarding schools (mass media reported abuses in Nubarashen Special School N18 and Vardashen Special Educational Complex). Instead, all endeavors were put by authorities to cover up the issue and blame the ones who dared to speak out about the problem.

 

In respect with the above-mentioned human rights violations there were a number of unsuccessful petitions addressed by various civil society groups to the authorities of Armenia demanding to stop prosecution of Mariam Sukhudyan, ensure fair and impartial trial and punishment of real criminals. Instead, the trends of chasing the reporters of crime and conducting predisposed investigation continue. Continuously appearing on the mass media testimonies of new witnesses proving abuses in the mentioned school are completely ignored by the police.

 

Another demand of civil society currently is to establish an inter-agency commission with involvement of international and civil society representatives to examine situation in special boarding schools in Armenia. Such schools are considered to be rather closed institutions and their problems remain largely unknown or disregarded by state institutions and the public. While ill-treatment and abuses in such establishments lead to the increase of vulnerability of the enrolled children and contribute to their alienation from the society, increase the risk for their engagement in criminal behavior. As case studies show, children from boarding schools and orphanages are generally the first victims of trafficking. Meanwhile, since November 2008, when the problems were first presented to respective authorities, there were no concrete actions to solve those. Instead, more efforts were directed to refuse the probability of problems and defend the existing practices.

 

We appeal to international organizations located inside our country as well as abroad to use your mandate and leverage to ensure protection of human rights and access to justice in Armenia. We are compelled to request your assistance in promoting our above-mentioned demands and anticipate due consideration and response to our petition.

 

For more information please contact (091)433278 

http://mariamsukhudyan.info