Recognizing the work of a women’s human rights defender with the Kato Mikeladze award

Since 2014, the UN Women Georgia Country Office has supported the Women’s Fund in Georgia (WFG) with the annual Kato Mikeladze award ceremony to honour women’s rights defenders on every 29 November – International Women Human Rights Defenders Day.

Kato Mikeladze was a remarkable Georgian feminist, women's rights activist and publicist in the first half of the twentieth century, and the award in her name was established by the WFG in 2013 to acknowledge the contribution of women's rights activists in Georgia.

“We established this award because the agenda that women’s rights defenders are working on is an extremely important one and this agenda needs to be supported,” stated Nana Pantsulaia, the Head of the WFG.

The 2016 Kato Mikeladze award was granted to Ms. Eka Skhiladze, a women’s rights activist and defender who currently works as the Deputy Public Defender of Georgia. In her speech, Ms. Erika Kvapilova, UN Women Country Representative in Georgia, congratulated Ms. Skhiladze, stating that, “Occasions like this allow us to celebrate achievements and the spirit of activism and to look forward by encouraging and supporting each other and promoting positive role models of women human rights defenders.”

UNDP, MamaCash and Kvinna Till Kvinna were among the other supporting organizations of the event along with UN Women.

The winner of the Kato Mikeladze award is identified by a confidential selection committee on the basis of open nominations made throughout the year. In 2013, the first winner of the award was Ekaterine Aghdgomelashvili, a distinguished women's rights defender and queer activist in Georgia. The winner of the 2014 award was Marina Tabukashvili, director of the NGO “Taso Foundation– Women's Fund and Memory Research Center”. The winner in 2015 was feminist artist and activist Lia Ukleba, who announced the 2016 winner.