In 2016, 17.2% of Armenians did not seek health care, because it was considered unaffordable. The share of 15 and older population not seeking medical care when there is a perceived need, almost doubled between 2009 and 2016. If in 2009 the percentage of those not seeking health care was 19.2%, in 2012 it increased to 35.2%, and in 2016 reached 36.8%.

Policy Brief is available only in Armenian.

Faith-based organisations (FBOs) are strategically placed to nurture and enrich human life, especially in the context of family, fertility, health, violence, community affairs and in the face of contemporary population and development challenges. Creating strategic partnerships with community opinion leaders, including FBOs, is a key to success in addressing the challenge of gender-biased sex selection (GBSS) effectively. In the context of mutual dependences, FBOs, CSOs, government and international development partners should join their efforts to work together for social transformation that will result in gender-balanced reproductive choices in the Armenian society, communities and families. Such partnership could rely on values and faith traditions that provide the foundation for a set of common fundamental rights. It could also bank on shared visions and common denominators in human dignity and human rights. Violence against women, including one of its worst forms – female infanticide – is a violation of human dignity, and therefore, human rights.

The current policy brief aimed at analyzing the monitored online print media outlets in cases when they covered the topic of sex selection and articles that were broadly linked to the value of girls and women. The content of web-based media outlets have been scrutinized to identify any statements or reporting that could have had distorted, untruthful or prejudicial elements against women or men. All these aspects were separately analyzed quantified and also handpicked, allowing analyzing the level of stereotypical reporting either as a media intention or as an absence of intention, leading to unobstructed penetration of prejudicial statements widely circulated in the society and back by reinstating the current state of the affairs.

Salient arguments against sex selection are numerous. These stress the harmful consequences of non-medical sex selection for the society, its controversiality for individuals and ambiguity in terms of professional ethics of service providers. Among the implications of sex selection are the harm to the offspring, as well as to women and men, misuse of medical resources for nonmedical purposes, and risks of discrimination and perpetuation of social injustice.