Pursuant to Article 78 of the RA Criminal Code, Pregnant women or women with children under 3 years of age, except women imprisoned for grave and particularly grave crimes for more than 5 years, can be exempted from punishment or the punishment can be postponed by the court for the period when the woman is exempted from work, due to pregnancy, child-birth and until the child reaches the age of 3. If in cases envisaged in part 1 of this article the convicted person rejects the child or sends the child to an orphanage or evades child-care and rearing, for which she received a written warning from the supervising body, then the court by motion of this body, can send the convict to serve the punishment assigned in the sentence.
When the child has turned 3 years old or in the event of death of the latter, the court, taking into account the convict’s behavior, can exempt her from punishment, or replace the punishment with a softer punishment, or send the convict to serve the unserved part of the punishment. In this case the court can deduct, completely or partially, the unserved part of the punishment from the total term. If a new crime was committed by the convict within the period of exemption from punishment, then the court assigns a punishment to her by the rules envisaged in Article 67 of this Code.
The awareness is implemented in the framework of the “Influencing the Women’s Rights Agenda” project by the Armenian Young Lawyers Association
