Lifting Legal Barriers to Women's Employment in Azerbaijan

This report: (i) explains economic and legal implications of current job restrictions to women for Azerbaijan, (ii) provides compelling arguments to move away from a job-title centric form of restricting and protecting women to an exposure focused rationale, and provides other country examples that follow an exposure-focused risk approach, (iii) describes the methodology used to assess OH hazards/risks attributed to each job restricted to women, critically reviews restricted jobs and provides resultant conclusions, and (iv) recommends changes to reform Labor Code and subsidiary legislation to align them with other national legislation, international conventions and good international practice. Importantly, the report provides suggestions on how to address the ramifications resulting from these changes. It is of note that this assessment is first of its kind for Azerbaijan to systematically and methodologically review job restrictions to women from a perspective of occupational health hazards and risks using available evidence