GBV Perpetrators Rehabilitation Programme Launched in Georgia
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The National Probation Agency’s (NPA) Rehabilitation Program Division has developed a “Rehabilitation Programme on Management of Violent Behavior, Gender Based Violence”. The new programme was presented to stakeholders on 21 April at the NPA’s offices.
The programme is aimed at the reduction and elimination of different types of gender-based violence;the modification of sexist and discriminatory conduct; and the prevention of recidivism. It will further serve the purpose of helping probationers with a history of violent behavior to understand violence directed at other people; acquire new skills for the management of disputes and conflicts without violence and aggression; learn partner relations; and manage to express their feelings in a constructive manner.
Developed with the support of UN Women, the rehabilitation programme will engage beneficiaries through group or individual therapeutic work over the course of 18 sessions. The NPA anticipates the programme running from four to six months, depending on the beneficiaries’ temperament, risk of recidivism, length of sentence, and other factors that could affect their level of engagement, including the environment of the programme it self. The first part of the programme focuses on the management of emotions, while the second part is devoted to discussion on different forms of GBV. The programme concludes with a module focused on preventing recidivism.
An NPA representative, Nino Tkeshelashvili, noted the following: “This is our first attempt to create a structured programme aimed at behavior management and prevention of recidivism for probationers. Beneficiaries of the programme will be selected from the probationers having difficulties in managing violent behavior in accordance with the carried-out risk and needs assessment. It will be mandatory for the selected candidates to attend the rehabilitation programme.”
The programme has been developed as a result of the Study Tour on Prevention and Response to Domestic Violence in Spain,organized by UN Women in November 2014 for the representatives of the Government of Georgia. It is also built on the Spanish model “GBV – Intervention Programme for the Rehabilitation of Perpetrators” (PRIA), selected by the NPA in consultation with UN Women as one of the most successful models of its kind worldwide.
The programme will be launched throughout Georgia after the relevant NPA professionals have completed specialized training with the support of UN Women during 2016.
The First Deputy Minister of Corrections and Probation, Tamar Khulordava noted, “The Ministry is pursuing individual approach and prevention-oriented policy in the system of criminal enforcement. It is our objective to support re-socialization and rehabilitation of prisoners and probationers in order to reduce the risk of re-offending. We were privileged to work with UN Women on prevention of gender-based violence through our joint work on targeted and specialized rehabilitation programme for perpetrators of gender-based violence. The project and our joint efforts will contribute to combating domestic violence and eventually to further improving women’s access to justice”.
The aforementioned Study Tour and the work in cooperation with the NPA aimed at the development and implementation of a rehabilitation programme for GBV perpetrators has been carried out in the framework of the UN Joint Programme for Gender Equality, generously funded by the Government of Sweden and implemented by UNDP, UN Women and UNFPA.