Human Rights Watch, World Report 2025

Country Report: Armenia (Part 2)

​Right to Equality and Non-discrimination 
In June, the Justice Ministry presented for public discussion an anti-discrimination bill that does not include sexual orientation, gender identity, health status, or marital and family status as grounds for protection. Some officials argued that they are implied in the draft’s other personal and social grounds for protection. However, the failure to specifically name them could lead administrative bodies or courts to exclude them, forcing victims to appeal rulings and creating unnecessary barriers to protection. 
 
The bill also makes no provision for NGOs to bring public interest lawsuits on behalf of discrimination victims, something long advocated for by local groups. 
 
Disability Rights 
Armenia continues to lack a comprehensive plan to introduce community-based services for people with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities and continues to prioritize institutions and institutional care. Armenia also continues to allow courts to deprive people with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities of legal capacity and offers no supported decision-making mechanisms. 
 
In May, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs disbanded the independent Monitoring Group for Institutions of Children, Older Persons, and Persons with Disabilities, which it had established by decree in 2018. Authorities claimed that the ministry was not authorized to establish the group. Armenian human rights organizations saw the move as retaliation for the group’s public reporting on violations it had documented; authorities failed to meaningfully investigate the group’s findings. 
 
Violence against Women and Girls 
Authorities investigated 1,535 criminal domestic violence complaints through June, a significant increase over the 484 complaints investigated during the same period in 2023, and brought charges against 197 people. At least four women were killed between September 2023 and September 2024, three by a family member. Three of the four women were over 60. 
 
In a positive move, in April, parliament adopted amendments strengthening the country’s domestic violence legislation. The amendments removed the reference to “family harmony” as the law’s primary goal and extended the definition of acts of domestic violence to include, among other things, forced medical and psychiatric interventions, hindering access to medical care, virginity testing, prohibiting or hindering contacts with relatives and friends, and various forms of exercising control over a partner. 
 
The amendments criminalized stalking as a standalone crime. They also clarified that perpetrators of domestic violence can include partners, former partners, and individuals in unregistered marriages, and specified that causing a child to witness domestic violence itself constitutes violence cognizable under the law. 

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity 
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people continue to face discrimination, harassment, and violence. 
 
Fear of discrimination and humiliation due to public disclosure of their sexual orientation or gender identity and lack of trust in official investigations continue to prevent many LGBT people from reporting hate crimes against them. According to LGBT rights groups, investigations into such crimes are often inconclusive or ineffective and the charges brought often do not reflect the homophobic and transphobic motives of perpetrators. The criminal code does not explicitly recognize animus due to sexual orientation or gender identity as an aggravating circumstance in hate crimes cases and law enforcement bodies are still reluctant to consider such animus when determining what charges to file. 
 
Local LGBT rights groups and activists documented 39 cases of physical violence, including 27 cases of violence committed by family members against LGBT people, from January through July. The groups also documented several cases of LGBT students dropping out of schools due to bullying. In one case documented by a group, the director of a child support center allegedly disclosed the sexual orientation of a new pupil to other children, disparaged her, and prohibited other children from interacting with her. 
 
Human Rights Watch, World Report 2025. New York.