2018-04-16
The Government of Georgia has approved the 2018-2020 Action Plans for Measures to Combat Violence against Women and Domestic Violence and to Protect Victims, which put together the efforts of individual agencies to deal with relevant challenges. This statement was made by the Prime Minister's Human Rights and Gender Equality Assistant Sopo Japaridze.
In her summary of the implementation of the 2016-2017 Action Plan for Measures to Combat Violence against Women and Domestic Violence and to Protect Victims, the Prime Minister's Assistant pointed out that numerous important activities were implemented by the Government of Georgia in 2016-2017 to combat violence against women and domestic violence.
In particular, relevant policy documents and legislative framework were developed and upgraded, and mechanisms for protecting victims were strengthened. In 2017, Georgia ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention), aligning Georgian legislation with international standards for combatting violence against women.
"State agencies hold active informative meetings with citizens and carry out public awareness campaigns on violence against women and domestic violence. As a result, the number of reports and referrals to law enforcements has grown significantly in the past few years. However, despite numerous positive changes-according to the 2017 National Study on Violence against Women implemented jointly UN Women and the National Statistics Office of Georgia with support from the European Union-widespread popular attitudes toward traditional gender roles remain a major challenge. Unfortunately, popular acceptance of different forms of violence against women remains strong, which poses a major obstacle for identifying and decreasing cases of violence against women and domestic violence. To counter this problem, the Government of Georgia continues active work on combatting violence against women. The Government of Georgia has approved the 2018-2020 Action Plans for Measures to Combat Violence against Women and Domestic Violence and to Protect Victims, which takes into account said study's findings and combines the efforts of individual agencies to deal with relevant challenges," Sopo Japaridze emphasized.
For information on the measures carried out by the Government of Georgia to eliminate violence against women and domestic violence, please visit http://gov.ge/dzaladobistsinaagmdeg/#p=1.