On June 30, 2020, the Public Defender’s Office of Georgia, with the support of UN Women, held Online Conference on Prevention and Monitoring of Femicide. The femicide monitoring report 2014-2018, which highlights the main trends, achievements and challenges of the country’s justice policy in the field of violence against women, was discussed at the conference.

"Although certain mechanisms for combating violence against women and domestic violence have been developed and refined in recent years, the gender-based murder of 5 women and 5 attempted murders since January 8, 2020 indicate that the current system, which is mostly reactive and implies response of law enforcement agencies to the cases, is not effective,” Public Defender Nino Lomjaria said in her speech.

Erika Kvapilova, First UN Women Representative in Georgia, Lela Akiashvili, Advisor to the Prime Minister of Georgia for Human Rights and Gender Equality, Natia Merebashvili, Deputy Prosecutor General of Georgia and Nino Tsatsiashvili, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia, delivered welcoming speeches at the conference.

According to the report of the Public Defender’s Office:

• The number of cases of femicide has not decreased dramatically over the last 5 years, and the number of femicide attempts has increased. Therefore, prevention of cases is problematic
• The crime is most often committed by husbands/partners, ex-husbands/ex-partners
• The country still does not have a unified methodological standard for maintaining statistics on violence against women and domestic violence
• It is problematic to identify the gender motive in the cases of femicide and femicide attempts; revenge and jealousy are most often identified.
• Examination of the history of violence preceding femicide and attempted femicide at the stage of investigation has been improved. The practice of plea bargaining and the use of disproportionately light sentences is no longer common in relation to the cases of femicide and attempted femicide after

Representatives of state agencies, international and non-governmental organizations, academic community and other stakeholders took part in the online conference.