Armenian women seeking black men

“Happiness for me means not being beaten and blood not gushing from my nose.”

“I have a black eye permanently so the neighbours have long stopped asking me what the matter is,” said Hasmik. She was just nineteen when her father married her off to a young man, whom she’d only ever seen from the window of her house. “Armenian women suffer violence, but they are afraid and keep silent, as they don’t believe that anything can be done about it,” said Consuelo Vidal, United Nations resident coordinator in Armenia at the launch of a 16-day programme Campaign Against Gender Violence that continues until December 16.įor 13 years, Hasmik Hakobian has been married to a man from a traditional Armenian family in the town of Gavar around 100 kilometres from Yerevan. Almost half of Armenia’s women have suffered domestic abuse, say researchers, yet this disturbing problem is being hushed up because of traditional attitudes.