HRW reports four femicides in Armenia in one year
Armenia's authorities investigated 1,535 criminal domestic violence complaints through June 2024, a significant increase over the 484 complaints investigated during the same period in 2023, and brought charges against 197 people, Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2025.
At least four women were killed between September 2023 and September 2024, three by a family member. Three of the four women were over 60, the organization said.
"In a positive move, in April, parliament adopted amendments strengthening the country’s domestic violence legislation. The amendments removed the reference to “family harmony” as the law’s primary goal and extended the definition of acts of domestic violence to include, among other things, forced medical and psychiatric interventions, hindering access to medical care, virginity testing, prohibiting or hindering contacts with relatives and friends, and various forms of exercising control over a partner.
"The amendments criminalized stalking as a standalone crime. They also clarified that perpetrators of domestic violence can include partners, former partners, and individuals in unregistered marriages, and specified that causing a child to witness domestic violence itself constitutes violence cognizable under the law," reads the report.