YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, NOYAN TAPAN. "In Armenia, no complaints about abuses of children's rights are received, we have no official statistics, and it bears evidence of the existence of problems because the absence of complaints speaks of the opposite," the Ombudsman of the RA Armen Harutyunian said at the February 9 enlarged parliamentary hearing on the Ombudsman's special public report "About the Current Problems in the Armenian Legislation on Children's Rights". He said that the state should take some steps with respect to the family. A. Harutyunian underlined that it has an organic relation to children's rights as the child forms in an environment where his family is primary. The problems raised in the report were mainly outlined based on the complaints received from citizens and the monitoring implemented by the RA Ombudsman Office. In order to solve them, it is proposed passing new laws and eliminating the current contradictions and shortcomings in the legislation. In particular it is necessary to review the low amount of the allowance for a child from father on divorce, as well as the order of granting an allowance for the care of children under the age of two. According to the ombudsman, this allowance is currently given to a working parent who is on leave. Whereas, the allowance is given for the child, and in the ombudsman's opinion, it is wrong to make a difference between working and not working parents, especially as in many cases the parent does not work for objective reasons and not through his (her) own fault.

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