A scandal around 10-year-old girl in Azerbaijan

The father of Nuray Bayramova, 10, tries to get custody of the child, while the relatives of her late mother insist on their right to child upbringing.

This story has come into focus of the whole country’s attention after a video was published on the Internet, featuring the enforcement officers taking away Nuray after the trial so as to hand her over to her father. The girl was trying to break free and hysterically crying, clutching at her aunt.

Nuray’s mother died of cancer in October 2010. By that time she had been divorced with the girl’s father, Avaz Bayramov, for three years. Nuray lived at her aunt (her mother’s sister) Mehriban Eldarova’s place. The latter took custody of the girl.

Nuray inherited her mother’s apartment, which also fell under the trusteeship of her mother’s relatives. The Eldarov family was going to sell the apartment in order to cover the expenses they sustained in an effort to cure and save her mother.

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In 2011, Bayramov filed a lawsuit, seeking to annul the child custody ruling and take the daughter to his place. The court’s final judgment remained unchanged: the girl will be raised by her father.

However, after a brawl with the enforcement officers, it was decided that the girl would temporarily stay with her late mother’s relatives. The State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, in its turn, inquired into the case and came to a conclusion that Nuray had received a psychological trauma and she couldn’t be handed over to her father now, since it would be against the child’s interests.

Mehriban Eldarova, the girl’s aunt, in turn, has taken legal actions to deprive the girl’s father of his parental rights. Her key argument is that Avaz Bayramov showed no interest in the child and had never helped her mother after the divorce and up until her death.