Date: 8 March 2016
Country: Armenia
“Women are different.” That was the main slogan Armenia’s Feminist Platform group chose to mark the International Women’s Day this year. Everyone regardless of age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, whether local or foreigner, from village or city, was invited to join the march in capital Yerevan and to “celebrate different ways of being a woman”, reports Gay Armenia.
But there were some bystanders visibly aggravated by the march. Some of them even stopped protesters to inform them that such public actions are “shameful and ugly phenomena.”
Reporters overheard a young man saying to a female marcher: “One might think that women’s rights in this country are totally violated. Who says women have no rights? Sure they do, but that doesn’t mean I should take posters and start protecting people’s rights”. He proceeded to complain that the marchers were “advocating homosexuality, and that’s not normal.”
During the march one could see posters reading: “women are different”, “lesbian”, “bisexual”, “transgender”, “scientist”, “virgin”, “sex worker”, “woman living with HIV”, “cleaner”, “entrepreneur”, “mother”, “single mother”, “model”, “soldier”, “not married”, “footballer / weightlifter”, “woman with disability” and more.
Armenia is amongst the least favourable countries for LGBT community in Europe. According to Pink Armenia, only Russia and Azerbaijan are behind Armenia.
