The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, itscauses and consequencespresented a report on Georgia at the 32^th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on June 17, 2016.

The UN Special Rapporteur spoke about Georgia’s achievements and challenges in fight against domestic violence. She paid particular attention to the importance of definition of the term of violence against women and improvement of legislative framework, as well as the importance of monitoring and studying the cases of femicide. In addition, she praised the monitoring carried out by Georgia’s Public Defender's Office.

Ekaterine Skhiladze, Head of the Department of Gender Equality of the Public Defender's Office, used the right granted to the human rights national institution and presented the Public Defender's opinion in her speech.

She spoke about the challenges in the field of protection of women's rights and gender equality. It was positively noted that identification of cases of domestic violence and relevant services have been improved in the country. However, she added that despite the repeated promises, the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence has not been ratified yet. She drew attention to the shortcomings in management and monitoring of violence against women and repeated cases of domestic violence, as well as scales of early marriage and problems in identification of such cases.

It should be noted that the UN Special Rapporteur’s report includes in-depth analysis and recommendations on challenges in the field of violence against women and domestic violence. In addition, the report’s recommendations are consistent with the Public Defender’s recommendations.