POSTPONED
If you would like to join the event in our library, please email nik@armenianinstitute.org.uk as the places are limited.
Join us for the second in our new series, Difficult Conversations, this time on the topic of gendered violence in times of conflict. We’re joined by specialist Anna Arutshyan, in conversation with Arpine Haroyan, to discuss a topic all too pressing in the aftermath of the second Karabakh/Artsakh war of 2020, and now again with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We’ll discuss issues such as the violence inflicted on women by armed forces in conflicts, the increase in domestic violence created by the trauma and hyper-masculinity of war, and more besides. In the spirit of the series, these challenging but important topics will be discussed in a safe space, talking with sensitivity while not shying away from the difficulty.
Speaker Bios:
Anna Arutshyan is a feminist legal scholar and activist advocating for gender equality and long-lasting peace. She has an MSc in Political Science and a recent LLM degree in International Human Rights Law from Oxford Brookes University. In 2001 she co-founded a civil society organisation ''Society Without Violence'' (SWV) working on women's rights in Armenia. In the course of extensive 20 years she has initiated numerous research projects aimed at gender education in secondary schools in partnership with global women’s networks and feminist organisations. Since 2014 she co-founded an Oxford-based ''Women's Solidarity Fund'' (WSF). Its work is to provide a platform for women from post-soviet countries to access educational resources and liaise with Oxford academic circles, as well as organise academic educational programmes with the engagement of high-profile UN special rapporteurs and Human rights advocates.
Arpine Haroyan is a journalist and researcher focused on Armenian women’s history. She previously worked at EVN Report online magazine where she had a special article series entitled, "From the Forgotten Pages of History" unearthing the work and featuring the lives of remarkable Armenian women of the 19th and 20th centuries. She also worked as a research assistant for Dr. Melissa Bilal (UCLA) and Dr. Lerna Ekmekçioğlu (MIT) for a book and digital archive featuring the history of Western Armenian feminism. Arpine is currently pursuing her master's degree in gender and media at the London School of Economics and Political Science.