Femicide is still a Pressing Problem in Georgia

Women in Georgia are still being killed by current or former partners and family members and the authorities are not doing enough to prevent it.  On December 1, the women’s rights organization Union Sapari, under the USAID/PROLoG-funded Protecting Women’s Rights project, led an online discussion about the challenges of fighting femicide in Georgia.  Baia Pataraia and Natia Gamkhitashvili of Sapari and Tamar Dekanosidze of Equality Now, an international women’s rights group, used two recently resolved notorious cases to illustrate a systemic failure to prevent and prosecute gender-based violence and discrimination in Georgia.  In Tkhelidze v. Georgia a woman was abused by her partner and then killed by him in a murder-suicide.  The European Court of Human Rights found the authorities failed to display diligence to prevent gender-based violence against the victim and her eventual murder.  They also found there was a pressing need to conduct a meaningful inquiry into the possibility that gender-based discrimination and bias had also been a motivating factor behind the alleged police inaction. In Jeiranova v. Georgia, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) found Georgia failed to prevent, and then properly investigate and prosecute, a case involving so-called “honor-based” violence resulting in the death of a married women accused of having had an affair. The speakers argued the cases underscored the need for establishing new approaches and standards to protect women from violence. The meeting with women’s rights and civic activists and local journalists throughout the country, was organized in the context of Georgia’s “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign.”