Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr. K.Zarbaliyeva / Moral, psychological and physical violence persists in over 70% of Azerbaijani families. The families have to keep silence due to absence of institutions to protect their rights in the country, Azad Isazadeh, a physiologist at the Women's Crisis Centre, said to Trend agency, commenting on the bill of Prevention of violence in families.
The permanent Parliamentary commission on Social Policy held discussions on the bill of Prevention violence in families. The bill touches upon interference by police and judiciary to family affairs.
There are serious differences over the project. MPs and experts did not agree to conduct control by police over disagreements in families and consider such a control as a contradiction to Azerbaijani mentality and customs. Therefore, the document should to be reconsidered.
The physiologist noted that the violence in families exists in every country. Alongside with women the children and men to become victims of violence. There are bills which protect violence of victim in spite of their gender and age.
"The persons, committed violence, are prohibited to come close to the house of the victim," Isazadeh said.
The physiologist considers wrong abuse of traditions to resolve the problem in Azerbaijan. Islam and Azerbaijani Government's legislation allows families to divorce. However, our customs do not recognize divorce. Azerbaijan has to stick to international convention to protect human rights, Isazadeh said.
The human rights activist Saida Hajamali considers important to study the European mechanism to struggle against violence within families. Touching upon interference to family affairs by police, the human rights activist noted that the issue should carefully be examined.
During the last year press-conference the Azerbaijani Interior Minister Ramil Usubov said that the most crimes in families happen in unfortunate families and considered necessary interference by police to such families' affairs.
The Interior Ministry reported that about 1,300 women underwent violence by men, as well as about 1,200 men underwent violence by women in 2007.