Campaign against domestic violence launches in Guria
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In November 2017, UN Women, in partnership with the local NGO Women’s Information Center, launched a campaign against domestic violence in Georgia’s south-western region of Guria.
The campaign aims to promote zero tolerance and increase awareness around services available for the victims of violence against women in the region. The campaign engages civil society activists, community leaders and representatives of local government through thematic round-table meetings, movie screenings and informational materials, as well as targeted trainings for the representatives of local NGOs.
In recent years, Guria has remained rather isolated from development interventions aimed at enhancing gender equality and combating domestic violence. As per the official data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Guria has the lowest number of registered domestic violence crimes when compared to all other regions. Experts presume that the reason is twofold: (1) the problem remains a taboo; and (2) there is low awareness of existing policies and services. It is noteworthy that Guria is Georgia’s third smallest region by population, yet its domestic violence response and reporting ratio is the lowest.
Ketevan Khidasheli, a local women’s rights activist and NGO training participant, underlined that the region still struggles with the lack of adequate service provision for the victims/survivors of domestic violence and effective prosecution of perpetrators. She further emphasized that attitudes, behaviours and beliefs that normalize and tolerate domestic violence remain widespread and constitute a major impediment to progress in curbing domestic violence in the region.
“Our campaign’s primary objective is to inform the public about available resources for the victims of domestic violence, as well as legal remedies against violence against women in general,” said Maia Rusetskaia, Director of the Women’s Information Center. “We have also used this opportunity to harness partnerships and information sharing with the local women’s organizations and activists to ensure they can serve as mediums for information sharing with local communities.”
The campaign will run until mid-December 2017 and coincides with the annual 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, a global campaign celebrated annually beginning 25 November.