AFchamber Women Professional Committee Held The Event On “Domestic Violence And Safe Workplace”
On 30 November 2021, AFchamber Women Professional Committee held the panel discussion conference on “Domestic Violence and Safe Workplace” in the framework of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is an annual international campaign that kicks off on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
The aim of the event was to highlight the importance of supporting women employees who are the victims of domestic violence, by creating a safe workplace culture and to bring new focus for the business community on raising awareness about the issue.
French Ambassador to Azerbaijan Zacharie Gross participated in the conference as an honorary guest. Zarina Zeynalova, CEO at “Azercell Telecom” LLC; Shamsiyya Mustafayeva, Development Coordination Officer at United Nations in Azerbaijan; Movlan Pashayev, Country Managing Partner at PwC Azerbaijan; Gulnara Akbarova, Psychologist; attended as guest speakers at the conference, moderated by Teyba Guliyeva, Chair of the Board at AFchamber.
The event started with welcoming remarks by Zacharie Gross, French Ambassador to Azerbaijan and Zibar Huseynova, Managing Director of AFchamber, and Sona Abbasova, Chair of Women Professional Committee at AFchamber gave an opening speech.
Zarina Zeynalova shared her professional expertise at the workplace and mentioned the importance of raising awareness as a key factor to start action for creating a safe workplace. Shamsiyya Mustafayeva as UN expert, provides statistical information about the connection between domestic violence and business productivity and growth. The data also showed that the aggregate economic cost of violence against women in Azerbaijan in 2017 could amount to USD 764 million (1.8% of the country’s GDP) meanwhile the cost of violence against women could amount to about 2% of the global gross domestic product (GDP), equivalent to USD 1.5 trillion, according to the report of UNFPA and SCFWCA, 2020. Movlan Pashayev stressed the key role of education and working policies dedicated to the issue. Gulnara Akbarova, as a Psychologist, gave an introduction to the types of gender-based violence (GBV) and spoke about the negative psychological impacts of domestic violence on the victims’ daily life and their working productivity.
The conference continued with the Q&A session; questions of the participants were answered by the guest speakers.