Country Profile Azerbaijan

General Country Information

Summary

There is one national women’s helpline in Azerbaijan, which is free of charge, available 24/7 and offers multilingual support. There are also other helplines supporting survivors of violence. There are two women-only shelters accessible to women in Azerbaijan, offering 85 beds in total, as well as eight other shelters accessible to women survivors of violence. There are also 11 Family and Child Support Centres operating in various regions of the country and offering a range of support services. There are no rape crisis centres or sexual violence referral centres in Azerbaijan. State authorities do collect data on primary prevention activities, but not in a centralised or fully standardised way, and there is no specific budget allocated to such activities. The National Action Plan on Combating Domestic Violence for 2024-2027 has been drafted but not yet approved. Apart from primary prevention activities, the state does not collect data on women’s specialist services.

Women’s Specialist Services

There is one national women’s helpline in Azerbaijan, called Women’s Support Line (Qadın Dəstək Xətti, tel.: 116 111). It operates free of charge, is available 24/7, and offers support in Azerbaijani, Turkish, English and Russian. The helpline is run by Reliable Future (Umidli Gələcək) Youth Organisation with the support of the State Committee for Family, Women, and Children Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Azercell Telecom LL.C. The helpline provides referral services, initial legal and psychological support, and rehabilitation services to women survivors of violence. The helpline is funded through donations. In 2024, the helpline received 1,623 calls and the most commons form of violence reported were physical and domestic violence, as well as violence directly or indirectly affecting children. Azerbaijan therefore does meet the Istanbul Convention minimum standards for the provision of a national women’s helpline.

There are other helplines in Azerbaijan supporting survivors of violence against women. This includes the government-run 152 Hotline (tel.: +994 12152) which provides information and consultation services to individuals who have experienced human trafficking crimes and potential or presumed survivors of trafficking, especially women and children. It is funded and operated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, available 24/7, free of charge, and provides multilingual support. Additionally, asso 102 is a helpline of the Ministry of Internal Affairs available for all criminal cased including those relating to violence against women. The helpline operates 24/7 and is free of charge within the country. Two NGO-led helplines (+994 116 and +994 111) provide support to survivors of violence, mainly handling calls related to psychological and economic violence. Another helpline is run by Clean World Public Union for Aid to Women for survivors of human trafficking (tel.: +994 125111151).¹

The 860 Support Line for Gender-Based Violence (Gender əsaslı zorakılıqla bağlı Dəstək Xətti) was a joint initiative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The helpline, which had been operating since October 2007, is currently not functioning due to UN project implementation suspensions.

There are two women-only shelters in Azerbaijan, with a total of 85 beds. One shelter is run by Clean World Public Union for Aid to Women and has 60 available beds while the other shelter is run by Temas Regional Development Public Union and offers 25 beds. There were two other women-only shelters operating in Baku, but these are currently not functioning and therefore not able to support women survivors. Both women-only shelters offer 24/7 accessibility, and women are not expected to pay for the accommodation. The average duration of stay in the women-only shelters is up to three months, however the length depends on the individual case. It can range from as little as one week to three–six months. Women can stay longer than six months if there is a danger that is causing harm to the woman’s health, and this danger persists or if the woman is pregnant and is due to give birth. In case the survivor does not have anywhere else to go, she can stay in the shelter until the child is two years old. The in-house services most often provided by the women-only shelters include casework, counselling and psychological support, referrals and collaborations with other services, practical advice and legal advice.

Both women-only shelters can be accessed by unaccompanied girls under the age of 18. Most women-only shelters are equipped to support women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women, refugee women, homeless women and women with substance abuse issues. Some women-only shelters are accessible to women with physical, cognitive or sensory disabilities, older women, transgender women and women with children with disabilities. However, neither of the women-only shelters can accommodate women with older sons (14 years and above). The women-only shelter run by Clean World Public Union for Aid to Women is also equipped to support women survivors of specific forms of violence, such as trafficking, honour-based violence, and forced marriage. There are no specialised women-only shelters supporting particular groups of survivors nor women survivors or those at risk of specific forms of violence in Azerbaijan.

Funding for women-only shelters mainly comes from donations. The state and international funders also provide financial support, however, in 2025 the women-only shelters received no international funding and limited government support. The two women-only shelters are run by women’s NGOs with a gender-specific and feminist approach. They are only present in major cities; the shelter run by the Public Union Clean World Aid to Women is located in Baku, the capital city, and the shelter run by Temas Reginal Development Public Union is located in Ganja. The main reasons why women-only shelters had to decline referrals were no space/capacity to support the survivor, no space/capacity to accommodate survivors with children, and the shelter not being adequately equipped for the needs of women and children. The most common forms of violence reported by survivors to the women-only shelters were domestic violence, physical violence and violence directly or indirectly affecting children. In 2024, 535 women and children were accommodated in both women-only shelters.

There are eight other shelters accessible to women survivors of violence in Azerbaijan. Two shelters are operated by the Social Services Agency (SSA) under the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection. One of these is the SSA Shelter and Social Rehabilitation Institution located in Baku with 70 beds for vulnerable groups, including survivors of domestic violence. The other shelter is the SSA Assistance Center for Trafficking Victims, which provides temporary shelter and broader reintegration services to survivors of trafficking. One shelter is run by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Baku and is called the Anti-Trafficking Shelter and Reintegration Center with 50 beds for survivors of human trafficking and potential survivors. These shelters can be accessed by women and men and are available 24/7. In addition, there are four shelters specifically for children run by NGOs which can support those experiencing domestic violence, as well as a one shelter run by the Catholic Church in Azerbaijan (Missionaries of Charity) with 30 beds which can accommodate women survivors of violence.

There are 11 Family and Child Support Centres (Ailə və Uşaq Mərkəzləri) operating in various regions of Azerbaijan, offering psychological assistance, legal advice, and referrals to other services, such as temporary shelters, court or police representation, and access to social services. The Family and Child Support Centres are financed through government funding and managed by the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Formerly, there were nine Women’s Resource Centres run by the United Nations jointly with the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs in the frame of USAID-funded projects. However, with the termination of USAID activities, these centres closed in 2024. Women’s centres are located in most regions of Azerbaijan. Three centres provide specialist support to survivors of trafficking and one NGO, called Gender and Development, advocates for the rights of transgender women and non-binary people. There are two centres that provide specialist support to women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women.

None of the women’s centres can be accessed by or are accessible to women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women, refugee women, women with physical, cognitive or sensory disabilities, older women (65 years and above), transgender women, and unaccompanied girls under the age of 18. There are no specialised centres supporting particular groups of survivors nor women survivors or those at risk of specific forms of violence in Azerbaijan.
Women’s centres provide only non-residential support services and participate in the placement of women in shelters. Women’s centres also provide specialist support for survivors of sexualised violence, such as specialist forensic and medical care, needs assessment, specialist psychological care, specialist sexualised violence advocacy services and community awareness and education for prevention.

There are no rape crisis centres or sexual violence referral centres in Azerbaijan. The country does provide psychosocial and legal support to survivors of sexualised violence, especially through helplines and general shelters, however it lacks dedicated, specialised services for rape and sexual assault survivors. Formally, women’s centres across the country did provide services to survivors of sexualised violence including referrals and escorting survivors to hospitals or emergency rooms to receive medical services. However, due to cancellation of international funding, these centres no longer provide such services. Critical services, such as 24/7 forensic exams, rape crisis centres, and gender-sensitive legal support are yet to be established. Additionally, gaps persist in survivor-friendly justice processes.

In Azerbaijan, state authorities do collect data on primary prevention activities, but not in a centralised or fully standardised way. The State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs operates 11 Family and Child Support Centres and these centres run activities related to preventing domestic violence, early marriage, substance abuse, and promote gender equality through workshops, trainings, and awareness campaigns. However, there is no comprehensive or integrated framework that measures their impact or includes all sectors. Data on the effectiveness and outcomes of these primary prevention activities (e.g., reduced violence rates) is not publicly available or aggregated in a single national report. There is also no centralised system that combines primary prevention data from NGOs, police, health services, or local municipalities. Efforts are ongoing to strengthen multi-sector data systems.

There is no official document on primary prevention and the National Action Plan (NAP) on Combating Domestic Violence for 2024-2027 has been drafted but not yet approved. The previous NAP on Combating Domestic Violence for 2020-2023 included provisions for establishing support centres, shelters, social rehabilitation, and public awareness raising. The NAP focused more on service provision and awareness-raising, not structured primary prevention strategies, and referenced prevention in broad terms but did not offer a specific, operational definition of primary prevention.

Budget lines for domestic violence activities are not disaggregated enough to isolate funds for evidence-driven primary prevention interventions, and it is therefore not known if there is a dedicated budget for such activities. Available primary prevention activities include empowerment activities for girls and women, primary prevention activities targeting boys and men, training for primary prevention practitioners, self-care activities, awareness-raising campaigns and programmes. Empowerment activities were implemented by Women’s Resource Centres and NGOs (e.g., vocational training, legal education, confidence-building workshops) before these shut down. Self-care activities are provided by some women’s centres and shelters as part of psychosocial support, which is also not always framed as primary prevention. The country relies heavily on awareness-raising and support services, with limited outreach to men and boys or structured gender-transformative programming.

1. Clean World Public Union for Aid to Women also ran a helpline for survivors of domestic violence, which is no longer active. It was close due to financial constraints and lack of sustainable funding. ↩︎
2. This figure only refers to the beds in the two women-only shelters ↩︎