On 30 May, in the National Parliamentary library, Public Defender of Georgia held a Public debate on the following topic “Violence against children in Georgia – who is responsible?

Two directions of the main topic of the debate on the violence against children were selected: Violence in schools and Domestic Violence.

The debate was moderated by the Head of NGO “Children of Georgia”, Jaba Nachkebia.

The representatives of State Bodies and NGOs, students of different universities of Georgia and interested public have participated in the discussions.

The Public Defender has underlined the importance of the fulfillment of his recommendations concerning violence against children and spoke about the necessity of consolidated efforts to combat violence at all level.

The Deputy Public Defender of Georgia has spoken about the urgent steps to be taken for establishment of united approach and elaboration of the strategy to tackle this problem.

A representative of the United Nations Children's Fund, Darejan Dvalishvili has presented outcomes of the survey conducted in 2013. According to the findings of the research, a large part of the society believes that a corporal punishment of children is an effective mean of education.

A Head of the Court Cases of the LEPL Agency of Social Service of the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia, Bidzina Kharazishvili has spoken on the problems of executions of court decisions by divorced parents. He has emphasized the necessity of further trainings of the judges in this regard, as well as stressed the importance of initiating and implementing various educational activities to increase the awareness of the society about this phenomenon.

A representative of NGOs "Partnership for Human Rights", Ana Arganashvili has underlined that the violence against children must be qualified as a crime.

The Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Georgia, Lia Gigauri has looked through a strategy worked out by the Ministry toward the overcoming of violence at public schools.

The discussion on the severity of this topic was evident that the violence against children encompasses many problematic fields. It was arisen a question on the juvenile offenders and in generally, an issue on state and society’s attitude toward the young children withchallenging behavior.

The PDO works in different fields of the protection of children’s rights and periodically proposes its opinions and recommendations.

Please view Photo Gallery of the event

See the Comment of Public Defender of Georgia