The Milli Majlis Committee for Family, Women’s and Children’s Affairs held a meeting on 17 September where Committee Chair Hijran Huseynova advised the participants of the agenda before moving on to the first item, which was the committee performance report for the 2021 spring and extraordinary sessions.

It was said that 21 issues had been processed at the 13 committee meetings during that period and that, besides, the Committee had arranged three hearings dedicated to the following subjects: ‘The Current Situation of Young Families: the Opportunities and the Challenges’, ‘On Maintaining the Gender Equality (of Men and Women’ and ‘The Legal Aspect of the Forming of the Family Strategy in Azerbaijan’.

Besides, the Committee chair and members had taken part in online meetings of the inter-parliamentary connexions working groups of which they are members and with representatives of international organisations, conducted discussions and made efforts to tell the global community of the developments of the region and to communicate to the same audience the well-founded stance of our country. 

In the same period, the Committee had received 351 citizen applications, having written and sent 153 letters concerning the issues raised to the appropriate departments and taken other relevant steps.

The performance report’s consideration was followed by the discussion of the 2021 autumn work plan, which, as Hijran Huseynova pointed out, was open to suggestions from the MPs.

Item 3 on the agenda was the set of draft amendments to the Laws ‘On Perpetuating the Shahid Title and on the Shahid Household Benefits’ and ‘On the Social Protection of Orphans and Children Deprived of Parental Care’. According to Mrs Huseynova, the amendments had been proposed in order to reflect the fact that pensions and allowances had been amalgamated in legislative acts with the pensions raised subsequently as well as that orphaned children and children with no parental care were maintained at the cost of the State.

Comments regarding the agenda items followed from Deputy Chair of the Committee Jala Aliyeva and the Committee members Tamam Jafarova, Parvin Karimzade, Ramin Mammadov, Sevil Mikayilova, Sadagat Valiyeva, Rashad Mahmudov, Konul Nurullayeva and Nigyar Arpadarai.

The MPs also made known what they thought of the past sessions’ performance report and the autumn-session work plan. They said they had been in touch with constituents and taken an active part in public and political processes in compliance with the quarantine constraints; they had also covered a good many topics in mass media.

On top of that, the Committee members suggested that the autumn-session work plan should include hearings on family issues and the rights of women and children as well as legislative reinforcement of the protection of family values, employment of women and prevention of household violence and violence against children. Also, they called for sterner penalties for such violent acts as those.

The Committee recommended that the Bill considered at the meeting should be tabled at a plenary sitting of the Milli Majlis.

MP Rauf Aliyev, head of the Social Legislation Department of the Milli Majlis Staff Adil Valiyev and other officials were taking part in the meeting as well.

The Press and Public Relations Department

The Milli Majlis