Saia speaks about Femicide as an acute problem in Georgia
By Anastasia Sokhadze
Tuesday, March 10
According to the statement made by the organization, the government has to face reality and provide both men and women with equal rights and opportunities. Despite various steps that were taken by the country, gender quietly remains a dire problem and needs to be addressed.
“According to this time, in 2020, eight women were killed by a family member, ex-spouse or partner. Such tragedies strongly exemplify the absence of strong, effective and reliable prevention policy,” stated the organization.
According to the text, it is crucial to investigate the nature of committed crimes and offenses. They need to be addressed with full victim protection mechanisms. To protect victims and prevent further incidents from happening, authorities need decent knowledge about the topic. They need to have a clear vision of what is considered a motive to commit a crime and other fundamental definitions.
The statement also highlights other gender equality related issues such as forced abortion, early marriage, and sexual harassment.
In 2018, there were 715 underage mothers and 23 underage fathers registered. Forced abortion is one of the major problems, but it isn’t yet punishable and legally regulated. As for sexual harassment, a few regulations were adopted in 2019. The mechanism of enforcing sexual harassment in labor relations belongs to The Public Defender Of Georgia.
Saia states that the main challenge is the low level of public awareness and demands the government to establish a systematic prevention mechanism to protect women from domestic violence, sexual harassment, forced abortion and marriage. They also add that it’s important to develop rehabilitation service for people with disabilities, criminalize forced abortion and marriage and develop a timely behavior correction program for abusers and offenders.
Around 151 cases of Femicide have been reported in Georgia in the last 6 years. Nino Lomjaria, Public Defender Of Georgia, spoke at a conference about the prevention and monitoring of Femicide held in Tbilisi with the support of UN Women.
The information she provided showed that most cases involving the attempted murder of women are usually accompanied by domestic violence. She believes the main problem is that most cases of domestic violence or violence against women are not reported to the relevant authorities as victims are reluctant to address them due to various barriers such as economic problems, lack of trust or other factors.
