Standing in the shoes of victims of violence

“Levan was very romantic. It felt like I was the luckiest woman in the world;” “When Temur asked me to marry him, people were saying that we were a wonderful couple;” “Giorgi wrote letters so beautifully that I felt like I was a character from a romance novel.” These are just a few quotes from women who survived violence, from real stories that start and follow a similar path, but then change as violence emerges in the lives of every character.

These real stories are all also scenarios from the famous In Her Shoes role-play exercise. UN Women Georgia, together with the Women’s Information Center, actively uses role-playing exercises with different audiences to raise awareness of violence against women.

This innovative method of information-sharing consists of a total of eight unique scenarios. Each of them is based on a woman’s experience of violence, across different levels of education, professions, marital statuses and needs. Although the beginning and the development of each story are known in advance, the ending depends entirely on each participant and their decisions. After receiving the script, they undergo a step-by-step process of finding a way out of violence, getting relevant services and support for the characters. Consequently, they see how many barriers must be overcome by women living under violence, and thus quite how difficult their path truly is. Doing this, they experience every detail themselves and become supporters of the characters involved.

At the initiative of UN Women, there are currently meetings being held for the organization of the In Her Shoes role-play sessions in the regions of Kvemo Kartli and Guria. Eter Chelidze, a resident of Gardabani municipality, played the role of 24-year-old Lena at one such meeting. She was looking for a solution for her protagonist for two hours, but the script developed in such a way that her character faced negligence from all sides, and the story ended with Lena’s death. “There is so much emotion that goes along with this process,” Eter said during the post-exercise discussion. “You really want to save this person and try everything – as if it were you experiencing all this on your own.”

Levan Nizharadze was assigned the story of 21-year-old Nato. Nato is a member of the LGBTQI community, and she consequently became a victim of domestic violence. “I received very important information,” Levan noted. “You might have to deal with these issues in a professional manner, and this experience gives you some direction in advance and, if necessary, dictates your actions.”

In Her Shoes helps the participants learn more about domestic violence and develop more empathy towards those who have this problem – to see that everyone can play a role in tackling domestic violence and that this is not a personal, but rather a public problem.

It should be noted that the Women’s Information Center will organize further sessions using this methodology across nine municipalities in the regions of Kvemo Kartli and Guria, with the support of UN Women. A total of 1,248 people (50 per cent women and 50 per cent men) will stand in the shoes of female victims of violence and try to find their own solution to the problem.

This initiative is part of the “Ending Violence Against Women and Girls in Georgia” project, being implemented by UN Women and UNFPA with the support of the European Union.