With financial support from the European Union, the Project will strengthen human rights protection in Armenia, with the focus on social and labour rights, through participatory multi-stakeholder policy dialogue, endorsed by empowered rights holders and sensitized duty bearers.
A viable multi-stakeholder open Platform (Civic Voice and Action (CVA)) on labour and social rights with robust knowledge of international and European labour standards and social rights protection, with a strong capacity to facilitate policy advocacy work is in place.
The Project will facilitate a multi-stakeholder policy Platform - CVA which will lead national consultations on the development and implementation of relevant public policies aimed at addressing the discrimination and violation of labour rights, with the involvement of grassroots organisations and activists’ nonformal groups.
Project activities under this outcome:
- Peer to peer learning and networking initiatives will be conducted with European CSOs and social partners for CVA network active members.
- The capacity of CVA will be built on international and European labour standards and social rights protection to ensure that it has a strong capacity to facilitate policy advocacy work.
A significant evidence base is accumulated by the multi-stakeholder policy network on policy and practice barriers and reform solutions for gender-sensitive and inclusive policy reforms in labour rights and social protection in the country.
The Project will conduct multi-dimensional research on labour and social rights, harnessing the power of the participatory approach, with the overall objective to accumulate rigorous evidence on labour rights issues in Armenia, to support the multi-stakeholder advocacy efforts under the umbrella of CVA network.
Project activities under this outcome:
- The research will be conducted to identify the COVID-19 impact on the labour rights situation in the country with the focus on vulnerable groups of society. The overall objective of the research is to elaborate recommendations to increase the efficiency of the social assistance program during the crisis.
- Participatory assessment of the public policies on labour rights protection will be done from the perspective of interests of vulnerable groups of society - youth, women, elderly, minorities, people with disabilities. This analysis will allow collecting evidence on policy gaps in the country.
- The evidence of labour rights violations will be collected, the court cases will be analysed to identify the practice gaps and propose solutions to increase the effectiveness of judicial protection of labour rights.
Rights holders, especially those in vulnerable situations, are informed and empowered to demand and acquire the protection of their labour and social rights.
The Project will initiate a public awareness-raising campaign with a strong educational component on labour rights and social protection. Youth and women's labour rights will be the focus of the information campaign.
Project activities under this outcome:
- The multi-dimensional information campaign on labour and social rights will include the development of media products, capacity building of media reporters, awards for investigative and citizen journalists.
- Awareness-raising actions on women labour rights will be launched to facilitate public discourse on gender-based dissemination in the labour market, gender pay gap, harassment.
- Rapid response mechanisms will be developed to voice and report cases of rights violations thus contributing to the empowerment of rights holders.
- The digital-based hotline will be piloted in at least three regions of Armenia through Project partners.
- To sensitize employers, private sector representatives towards labour rights protection in the workplaces workshops and/or individual training will be conducted, an easy-guided manual on labour rights legislation in Armenia will be developed.
- A youth mainstreaming strategy will be designed to ensure that needs, concerns, and labour rights of young people are mainstreamed throughout every stage of the project. The specific focus will be on the awareness-raising and influencing component.
“EU4LabourRights: Increasing Civic Voice and Action for Labour Rights and Social Protection in Armenia:” Project is implemented by OxYGen Foundation, Socioscope NGO, “Asparez” Journalists’ Club NGO, Armenian Progressive Youth NGO, Media Diversity Institute - Armenia in cooperation with Protection of Rights without Borders NGO, and Eurasia Partnership Foundation. The Project is funded by the European Union.