Armenians silent about cases of violence against children

World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse is celebrated every year on November 19.

In that connection, the Armenian office of People in Need Czech organization held Friday a round table in Yerevan, bringing together representatives from several NGOs.

Speaking at the meeting, organization’s project manager Tatevik Bezhanyan expressed her concerns over the existing problems in Armenia.

“Statistics on sexual violence has been submitted by the police. We can rely on official data only, because this problem in our country is concealed. Our society prefers to remain silent about cases of violence,” she said, adding that the most wipeasread forms of child abuse in Armenia are rape, sexual harrassment and sexual abuse.

Introducing statistic data, Bezhanyan said that cases of sexual violence in 2008 increased to 63 compared to the 33 cases of the previous year, with 79% of the aggrieved being teenagers.

All in all, 19 cases of child rape were registered in 2005-2009.

The maximum age of rape victims was 15, the youngest victim being 12 years old.

In some cases, the age gap between the perpetrator and the victim was 30 years, the former very often being familiar with the latter (relative, step father etc.).