“GEGHARD”
SCIENTIFIC ANALYTICAL
FOUNDATION
2026
2026
2026-02-11
The exploitation of children, pedophilia, and their spread continue to remain a social phenomenon in the Azerbaijani society. This is due to systemic failures, socio-cultural problems, and the ineffectiveness of the legal system. In the first six months of 2025 alone, the Child Protection Hotline in Azerbaijan received 334 reports concerning cases of violence against children, 19 of which related to sexual violence against minors. These figures demonstrate that the measures in Azerbaijan aimed at preventing and investigating such sexual crimes are largely ineffective. Moreover, there is evidence indicating that minors have been subjected to sexual abuse by representatives of the security forces themselves.
The Chair of the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Bahar Muradova, stated as early as 2023 that during the first ten months of that year the Committee had received 15 reports concerning sexual violence against children. However, the same Committee’s official report for 2024 contains no statistical data on the number of children subjected to sexual violence in the country.
According to the report “The Child Protection System in Azerbaijan: Situation Analysis” published by UNICEF Azerbaijan, minors are abducted and predominantly transported to Baku from rural regions. Trafficking networks subject them to sexual exploitation or coerce them into begging.
These facts indicate that the Azerbaijani leadership has joined a number of international human rights protection conventions largely in a formal manner. In particular, Azerbaijan ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1992; however, the implementation of its provisions in practice remains largely symbolic. A key legal issue lies in Azerbaijan’s legislation, which does not comply with international standards concerning the prevention of and punishability for the sexual exploitation of children.
The exposure of cases involving the distribution of child pornography and the sexual exploitation of children, together with documentary evidence and concerns raised by representatives of civil society, demonstrates that the sexual exploitation of children in Azerbaijan persists within an environment of impunity.
One of the notorious cases of 2025 is the rape of a 14-year-old boy in the Kangarli district of Nakhichevan. Four men have been charged in this case, three of whom are military personnel. The victim's father told that due to public backlash, his son was forced to stop attending school for some time. Judge Sakhavat Huseynov issued a notably lenient verdict in the case. One of the accused soldiers was sentenced to nine months in prison as the court cited homosexuality as a mental illness. A second soldier was sentenced to one year in prison, while the third was not sentenced at all.
A rape involving police officers took place in the Gakh region. A 17-year-old resident of Gakhbash village reported that six police officers from the regional police took her into the forest and raped her. According to her, the police officers insulted, beat, and threatened her. She filed a report about the incident at the local police station, after which the victim was threatened not to speak about what happened. Later, a report about the incident was submitted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan and the Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan.
According to investigation, boys make up a significant portion of the victims of child sexual exploitation in Azerbaijan. The 64-year-old owner of a grocery store in Baku's Surakhani district raped a 12-year-old boy for a year.
Cases of child molestation have also been recorded in educational institutions. At Baku secondary school No. 57, two 16-year-old students raped an 8-year-old boy. In response to the parents' complaint, the school's deputy principal dismissed the incident as defamation. A similar case occurred in 2018 at Baku secondary school No. 263. An orphaned first-grade boy was subjected to sexual violence by a tenth-grade student (or students, according to some reports) from the same school. According to circulating information, the principal reached an agreement with the tenth-grader’s parents to cover up the incident and paid 2,000 manats to the victim’s aunt. It should be noted that in 2023, a 10-year-old female student from the same school was raped by an elderly man.
Research into recorded cases of child sexual abuse shows that impunity and the lack of preventive mechanisms further exacerbate existing problems; perpetrators either evade accountability or receive disproportionately lenient punishments. Often, perpetrators force the child to remain silent about the incident, either by offering money in exchange for their silence or by intimidating them, even with threats of murder.
In the Masally District, a 21-year-old man committed indecent acts against a 12-year-old boy, threatening to kill the minor if he told anyone what had happened. A similar incident occurred in Sabirabad, where three fellow villagers raped a 12-year-old boy on a riverbank and subsequently demanded money in exchange for not publishing a video recording of the act on social media. The minor's father stated that the boy had regularly gave money to the perpetrators. It should be noted that no one was punishedfor this incident.
Cases of sexual abuse of minors by relatives are quite common in Azerbaijan. In Neftchala, a 14-year-old girl, who lived with her mentally disabled father, three underage brothers, and her 80-year-old grandparents, was repeatedly sexually exploited by various men, including relatives.
In 2025, the Azerbaijani press published news of a 13-year-old girl’s pregnancy. During the investigation, it was revealed that the girl had been raped by her aunt’s husband.
A video circulated on social media showing a 64-year-old resident of Garatepe village in the Sabirabad district committing indecent acts against his neighbor’s underage granddaughter.
Children who have been deprived of permanent housing are also subjected to sexual exploitation. For example, in 2016, syphilis was detected in minors living on the streets of Baku.
Numerous cases of the gang rape of minors have been recorded in various regions of Azerbaijan. In August 2025, the gang rape of a 13-year-old girl in Gakh caused a major uproar. About 30 men were arrested in connection with the case, two of whom were police officers.
Four people have been arrested in Barda on charges of raping a 15-year-old girl. They had filmed the crime and distributed the video. A criminal case has been opened on the matter under Article 152.1 of the Criminal Code (rape or other sexual acts with a person under sixteen years of age).
There have been cases where children are sexually exploited by their own parents. For example, in the Yardimli region, four people, including the minor's mother, were arrested for sexually assaulting an eighth-grade child.
Cases of gang rape have also been recorded in the territories occupied by Azerbaijan. For instance, in 2025, four individuals were arrested in Akna (Aghdam) on charges of raping a 16-year-old girl.
It should be noted that the vicious phenomenon of pedophilia is also prevalent among Azerbaijanis living abroad. For instance, in 2020, in the Beryozovsky district of Russia, a 33-year-old Azerbaijani man raped his own children. A criminal case has been opened regarding the incident.
Another case involving the rape of a minor by an Azerbaijani man occurred in Volgograd. Khayal Mammadov, a 35-year-old citizen of Azerbaijan, lured a 13-year-old girl into a forest under the pretext of asking for directions and raped her.
Another Azerbaijani national was arrested in Russia for committing sexual offenses against minors. A. Shahmuradov, a 54-year-old man, raped an 8-year-old girl. A week after the crime, during the investigation, Shahmuradov confessed that he had committed similar crimes against three other children as well.
In reality, cases of child molestation are far more frequent than those reported. Children who have been victims of sexual violence are often forced to hide what happened to them, primarily due to fear. Nevertheless, the number of recorded cases indicates that in Azerbaijani society, the so-called 'preferred' victims of immoral acts are boys. The sexual exploitation of children by relatives, gang rapes of minors, the inaction of law enforcement agencies, and their direct involvement in this heinous process all attest to the existence of a 'rooted' phenomenon of child sexual exploitation in Azerbaijan.
Apparently, Azerbaijani society is also not at peace with this reality, but the inaction of the relevant authorities, the presence of perverts in state agencies (which is even visible based on the facts presented), has created a favorable environment in the country for the exploitation of children. The abuses of children by their own society should serve as a signal for the public of Azerbaijan to rise up and demand that the authorities uproot such phenomena, regardless of the extent of the authorities' culpability.