Chair of the Milli Majlis Committee for Family, Women’s and Children’s Affairs Hijran Huseynova met with the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the French Republic to Azerbaijan Zachary Gross on 16 April.  

Mrs Huseynova greeted the guests before underlining the importance that our country attaches to furthering the relations with France. She recalled that Azerbaijan was one of the first Eastern states to give women suffrage back in 1918. Nowadays, the country has a solid legislative framework to defend women’s and children’s rights. Women’s rights and involvement in the life of the country are amongst the state policy priorities; President Ilham Aliyev and First Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva are taking special care of the matter, according to Mrs Huseynova.

Azerbaijan rid its lands of occupation in the 44-day Patriotic War; the national territory was made whole again consequently. Right now, the grave consequences of the Armenian occupation policy are being eliminated; in particular, the rehabilitation of women and children are going on. It is incomprehensible of international organisations and individual states not to condemn Armenia, an occupier state, despite such a background, Mrs Huseynova emphasised.

Mr Gross thanked for the meeting and told Mrs Huseynova that France was interested in continued deepening of its ties with Azerbaijan and had always recognised the territorial integrity of our country. He also expressed satisfaction with that the war had been over and the Azerbaijani IDP were headed back to their homeland. There are positive trends in the French-Azeri relationship, the French diplomat assured before voicing a confidence in on-going progress of the bilateral co-operation.

There was an exchange of opinions about interaction platforms concerning the areas of women’s rights’ protection, maintenance of gender equality, discouragement of household violence and involvement of women with the health care system. Other matters of mutual interest were talked about as well.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis