The Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Sabina Aliyeva, participated in the parliamentary discussion of the new draft bill on the rights of children of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The Ombudsman in her speech highlighted the relevant complex reforms consistently carried out by the country’s president, Ilham Aliyev, and the First Vice-President and the President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Mehriban Aliyeva, and the significant accomplishments in child well-being.

From the point of regulating new social relations, S. Aliyeva highly appreciated the development of a new draft bill, which aims to improve the regulatory basis. She also underlined that the provisions in the new draft bill are very important in terms of the implementation of the recommendations to the state periodic reports made by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

The Commissioner reiterated the expansion of her mandate to function as an independent monitoring mechanism for the monitoring and promotion of the implementation of the UNCRC by amending the Constitutional Law on the Ombudsman, which was also provided for in the current Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan “On the Rights of Child.”

1. Aliyeva said that the Ombudsman’s recommendations, made to the present draft bill and drafts of other related legal and normative acts, were considered by the corresponding authorities. It was specified that the Ombudsman’s recommendations put forward in general and to the current draft bill took into account the provisions of the UNCRC and the Optional Protocol thereto. In addition, the Ombudsman’s annual reports also provided recommendations proposed for amending the relevant legislation.

The Ombudsman stressed the importance of the norms containing the new draft bill from the perspective of the prevention of children from falling into difficult situation, ensuring their social protection, considering the best interests of children when carrying out any proceedings in relation to them, developing the combating of violence against them, and overall, for more effective protection of the children’s rights.

During the discussions, Hijran Huseynova, the Chairwoman of the Parliamentary Committee for Family, Women and Child Affairs, shared her views about current challenges in the field of ensuring the rights of children, as well as the significance of the normative and legal framework.

The exchange of views was held also around the issues in relation to improving the mechanisms for effective enforcement of the children’s rights and freedoms, shaping the legal framework to meet the requirements of modern era, and the harmonization of the national legislation with international standards, along with the norms of the new bill.