The Public Defender of Georgia has launched an information campaign Equality around Us in order to raise awareness of equality issues and combat discrimination.

By adopting the law on the elimination of all forms of discrimination, Georgia took a significant step forward, but equality is still a challenge. Inadequate legislative safeguards, wrong attitudes of the society and the lack of state measures aimed at eliminating discrimination negatively affect the rights of vulnerable persons in everyday life.

The goal of the campaign is to increase public awareness, change the existing stereotypical approaches and establish the equality principles, while formal education has the pivotal role in this process. That is why it is important the issues of equality to be emphasized in the curriculums at all stages of education.

In order to take into consideration the interests of individual groups and achieve essential equality, it is necessary the representatives of the authorities to more engage in the fight against discrimination as a part of the state policy and put making statements in support of equality on their agenda.

Three years have passed since the enactment of the law and we can talk about the problematic issues that impede its effective implementation. The main recommendation of the Public Defender is still the implementation of legislative amendments by the Parliament of Georgia, which we submitted as a legislative proposal as early as 2015.

Based on the above mentioned, important events are planned to be held within the framework of the campaign in order to raise public awareness about equality mechanism and lobby the initiatives aimed at regulating the legislative space.

The Public Defender’s special report on equality was presented and a video was displayed at today’s press conference.