The transgender community faces marginalization in Armenia and is often exposed to discrimination, hate speech and hate crime, according to the data available and personal reporting in the country.
The Right Side Human Rights Defender NGO, organised the training course "Human Rights in Touch with Tomorrow" in Tsaghkadzor, Armenia on 15-18 March. The training involved 20 young transgender people from Armenia where the topic access to justice for the transgender community was dealt.
A safe platform was created during this training course to enable young transgender community representatives learn more about self-protection mechanisms from hate speech, hate crimes and discrimination. As a result, the participants are now:
- better equipped with advocacy and campaigning skills for human rights and equality,
- able to establish dialogue and alliances between the transgender community and non-governmental organisation (NGO) representatives in order to combat discrimination more effectively through joint cooperation and active civic participation.
The training course will be followed by four activities, such as:
- A one-month lasting activity involving participants of the transgender community, who plan to visit ten regions in Armenia for awareness rising actions on hate speech, hate crime and discrimination faced by transgender people.
- “Community and activism” one-day meeting with the 16 transgender people from different NGOs working in the field.
- “ My Rights Matter Too” social video advertisement on the International Transgender Day of Visibility on the 31 March.
- “What is transgender” 200 copies of a booklet on gender identity in the Armenian language will be developed and distributed among transphobic people.
The Right Side Human Rights Defender NGO considers this project as a step forward to increase the well-being, harmonious and secure life of transgender people and to contribute to the strengthening of democracy and equality in Armenia.
This training course was implemented as part of the project of the Right Side Human Rights Defender NGO, through the project “Strengthening access to justice for victims of discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes in the Eastern Partnership”, funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe in their Partnership for Good Governance (2019-2021).
