Three new crisis centers for survivors of violence open in Georgia
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UN Women, with the support of the Government of Sweden and the European Union is assisting the government of Georgia in expanding the geographic coverage of services available to the victims/survivors of violence against women and domestic violence in Georgia.
Three new crisis centers for victims/survivors of violence against women and domestic violence have been open in Ozurgeti (Guria), Telavi (Kakheti) and Zugdidi (Samegrelo) to provide one-stop shop support services to victims/survivors of violence. The crisis centers provide psychological and socioeconomic assistance and rehabilitation, medical, legal and referral services to victims/survivors. With three state-run crisis centers already operating in Tbilisi, Kutaisi (Imereti) and Gori (Shida Kartli), Georgia now has six crisis centers enabling women from various regions of Georgia to access services available for victims/survivors of violence.
New crisis center in Ozurgeti is the fourth state-run crisis center in Georgia and has been set up by the State Fund for Protection and Assistance of Victims of Human Trafficking (State Fund) with the support of UN Women and the European Union. The agreement has already been reached with the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia that the government will fully take over funding of the crisis center in 2020.
In line with efforts to support the process of decentralizing service provision for the survivors of violence, crisis centers in Telavi and Zugdidi have been set up jointly by a local NGO Women’s Consultation Center Sakhli in collaboration with respective local municipalities with the support of UN Women and the Swedish government. Funding for the Telavi and Zugdidi crisis centers will be provided by the local municipalities as of 2021.
In partnership with the European Union and the Government of Sweden to Georgia, UN Women plans to further support the State Fund in the expansion of its network of state-funded crisis centers. Three additional crisis centers in the regions of Adjara, Kvemo Kartli and Shida Kartli are projected to be launched in 2019.