Aynur Sofiyeva's homophobic speech

Qafqazinfo reports that Aynur Sofiyeva, deputy chairman of the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs, during the speech at the event of "Youth and family: Tradition and Contemporary Views" said: 

“Unfortunately, today in the West, animals are kept instead of children in families. Large families consist of small families and such families are increasing in the world. They want to impose on us different family models. They want to impose same-sex marriages as a family model. When we have a look at this, we see that the family model has collapsed in the West. This leads to demographic problems in the world. In fact, instead of addressing these problems the West aims to transmit it to other societies. Our main purpose must be to protect our national values.”

It should be noted that the past few years, Azerbaijan is ranked as the worst country for LGBTI in Europe by the international LGBTI organization ILGA-Europe rating. There are no laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in Azerbaijan. Every year hate crimes and suicides cases on the basis of homophobia and transphobia are registered in the country.

While homophobia and transphobia are not part of public policy, the competent individuals and deputies of different government agencies have occasionally been putting forward discriminatory positions.