National communication strategy on Violence against Women and Domestic Violence underway
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While service provision is critical to effective response on violence against women, the best way to end it in a long-term is to prevent it from happening via addressing its root-causes and transforming attitudes and behaviors that perpetuate such violence.
On October 3-6, 2017 UN Women and the European Union conducted a three-day workshop in Crown Plaza, Borjomi embarking on thedevelopment of the national communication strategy on violence against women and domestic violence.
A strategy drafting workshop was conducted within the framework of the EU sponsored project “Unite to Fight Violence against Women in Georgia” in partnership with the Inter-Agency Commission on Gender Equality, Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. The initiative brought together public relations specialists from line ministries and state agencies engaged in the prevention and national response todomestic violence under the national action plan on violence against women and domestic violence. The communication strategy aims at consolidating resources and improving joint planning and coordination to ensure that government’s awareness raising interventions are evidence based, targeted and address root and structural causes of violence. The strategy is being developed in line with the international best practices on awareness raising interventions on EVAWG and is informed by the findings of the Nation-Wide Survey on Violence against Women, as well as broad consultations with key national stakeholders in the field, including with development partners and civil society organizations.
“In the recent years, government agencies have been increasingly engaged in conducting various awareness raising programs on violence against women and domestic violence. Via developing a national communication strategy, the Inter-Agency Commission will ensure that these efforts are coherent and that different state agencies speak with one voice,” - said Sopo Japharidze, Chair of the Inter-Agency Commission on Gender Equality, Violence against Women and Domestic Violence.
Workshop participants from the Communications Department under the Administration of the Government of Georgia, S. Chiklviladze underlined the importance of the national communication strategy in shaping government’s shared vision on prevention of violence against women further stressing that the “joint planning and coordination is vital to delivering a strong message to the public that ending violence against women and girls is government’s top priority.”
The initiative responds directly to the commitments undertaken by the Government of Georgia under the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence ratified by Georgia as of May 2017, which amongst others, places the responsibility on the Government of Georgia to regularly promote and conduct awareness-raising campaigns and programmes to increase awareness and understanding among the general public on all forms of violence against women and girls, including domestic violence.