UN Women to support strengthening services for domestic violence survivors

UN Women will support the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia and the State Fund for the Protection and Assistance of Victims of Human Trafficking, to build capacity for prevention and response to violence against women.

The Minister of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia, Mr. David Sergeenko and two UN agencies – UN Women and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) – signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) within the framework of the Joint UN Programme for Gender Equality to determine the framework for cooperation through the end of 2020.

Under the MoU, UN Women will support the Ministry to establish the first specialized services for the survivors of sexual abuse and four new shelters and crisis centres for the survivors of violence against women and domestic violence. In addition, socio-economic rehabilitation programmes for the survivors will be developed, focusing on the provision of vocational education and employment support services. The efforts within the MoU are aimed at building comprehensive, accessible and high quality services for the survivors of violence against women and domestic violence in line with the requirements of the Istanbul Convention, Georgia has recently ratified.

The Minister of Labour, Health and Social Affairs Mr. David Sergeenko stated: Today a Tripartite Memorandum of Understanding has been signed, I believe such format of cooperation will provide more opportunities to work on the issues of violence against women.

The Joint UN Programme for Gender Equality is implemented with financial support from the Government of Sweden.