EU and UN Women launch a joint action to combat violence against women and girls

UN Women and the EU Delegation to Georgia launched the joint action “Unite to Fight Violence against Women” – a three-year initiative aimed at preventing and eliminating violence against women and girls (VAWG) and domestic violence (DV) in Georgia.

The launch event was attended by the representatives of the legislative and executive branches of the Government of Georgia, the diplomatic corps, the UN Country Team, international and local NGOs and the media.

The joint action will strengthen the capacities of key policy and service-delivery institutions to promote and protect women’s rights to life free from violence, improvenational data collection and analysis of VAWG data, and invest in VAWG prevention, including in work with the perpetrators.

“Work towards ending VAWG globally lies in the core of UN Women’s mandate,” stated Erika Kvapilova, UN Women Country Representative in Georgia, in her opening speech. “In Georgia, we have been supporting national partners to address the issue systematically since 2011. From advocating and supporting efforts for strengthening the legislative framework to providing comprehensive services to survivors and boosting efforts to persecute perpetrators, UN Women seeks to influence positive shifts in social attitudes. With the support of the EU, we will be able to extend our work around preventing the reoccurrence of violence and protecting victims/survivors of VAWG and DV in Georgia. The initiative will support the Government of Georgia to establish two additional crisis centres in Qvemo Qartli and Guria regions. We will develop and pilot a rehabilitation programme for the perpetrators of domestic violence and provide GPS ankle bracelets for perpetrators to prevent the reoccurrence of violence, learning from the best practices available worldwide.”

The representative of the EU Delegation, Ketevan Khutsishvili, underlined that for the EU gender equality and women’s empowerment represents a core value that is continuously promoted in all EU internal and external policies. “Effectively addressing VAWG is part of this comprehensive approach towards EU support to the partners in Georgia,” Ms. Khutshushvili noted.

The launch of the joint EU-UN Women action took place at the outskirts of the high-level meeting on ending VAWG and DV organized by the UN System in Georgia every year on the occasion of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.