The Sciences and Education Committee of the Milli Majlis held a videoconferenced meeting on 19 December. The agenda of it, as announced by committee chairman Bakhtiyar Aliyev, contained two items.

Mr Aliyev began by addressing himself to the third-reading amendments to the E-Signature and E-document Law, saying that the Bill had been gone through both previous meetings at committee sessions and the parliament’s meetings in plenary alike. The draft is there in line with the 2022-2022 Open Government Promotion National Working Plan approved with a presidential decree, according to Mr Aliyev.

The committee members recommended that the Bill should be brought up in the third reading at a plenum of the Milli Majlis.  

Moving on, Mr Aliyev reviewed the second-reading amendments to the to the Labour, Family and Criminal Codes and the Code of Criminal Procedure as well as to the Laws ‘On the Rights of Child’, ‘On Barristers and the Bar Practice’, ‘On Education’, ‘On the Social Service’, ‘On the State Dactyloscopic and Genomic Registration in the Republic of Azerbaijan’ and ‘On the General Education’, all drawn up the 22 October 2019 law on ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse and introducing pertaining changes in the said codices and laws.

Two articles with the same content are to be added to the Education Law and the General Education Law.

As per the amendments, general education institutions are obliged to guarantee minors’ awareness of sexual exploitation and abuse risks as well as acquaintance with means of self-protection. Such instruction shall be tailored to specific schooling stages and have corresponding degrees of complexity. Pupils are also to be supplied with general gender education along the way.  A special stress is to be put on hazardous situations, in particular on those arising from the use of modern IT. The tutelage may involve the covered minors’ parents or legal guardians.

Apart from the above, the amendments stipulate the exclusion from pedagogical of persons previously convicted for sexual violence offences, especially those inflicted upon minors.

Jeyhun Mammadov of the committee commented on the expediency of the amendments before underlining the necessity of propaganda and enlightenment in this thematic area.

The committee recommended then that the second-reading Bill should be tabled before the House at a sitting in plenary.

Deputy Chairman of the committee Musa Gasimli and the member-MPs Ulviya Agayeva, Tamam Jafarli, Etibar Aliyev, Kamila Aliyeva, Rafael Huseynov, Anar Isgandarov, Parvin Karimzade, Eldar Guliyev, Mushfig Mammadli, Aghiya Nakhchivanli and Fatma Yildirim as well as Head of the Milli Majlis Chief’s Social Legislation Department Adil Valiyev attended the meeting as well.

The Press and Public Relations Department

The Milli Majlis