Armenia's labor and social affairs minister hails progress in poverty reduction

Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Zaruhi Batoyan on Friday praised her agency’s activities towards poverty eradication over the past year, unveling plans for future consistent work to record more serious outcomes in 2020.

At an end-of-year news conference summing up their achievements, the minister also highlighted a slight decrease in the poverty rate (by two numerical indicators), highlighting at the same time other government insitutions' responsibility for tackling the problem.

″Poverty eradication is not limited to the social sector alone; we are mitigating poverty to prevent its further deepening, but to eliminate poverty through benefits sounds really romantic. We need to create job opportunities and render our services based on needs. I am confident we have carried out active steps towards poverty eradication and will see far more serious outcomes in 2020. But that isn't a task for one single sphere,″ she said.

As an important achievement, Batoyan pointed out to revised services for individuals with special needs, adding that a preliminary list proposing personal aid is from now on available to those people.

Upon journalists' request, the minister also addressed the recently reported cases of illegal child adoption. ″We have only fixed that there is a questionable process; we registered the complaint which was later referred to the law enforcement authorities. Also, we have received applications from citizens who say that despite their permanent desire to adopt children they are told that there aren’t any children now,″ she added.