Public Defender Nino Lomjaria is responding to the consideration of the draft law on gender quotas at the plenary session of Parliament of Georgia on March 23, 2018 and considers it important the mentioned initiative to be supported by the Parliament of Georgia.

The Public Defender considers that the Georgian society clearly expressed its opinion about the importance of increasing women's political participation with the signatures of 37,000 voters and now a historic step should be taken by the Parliament. The challenges in the field of gender equality and women's rights underline the importance of the issue and make it clear that all agencies, including the Parliament, should take effective steps.

Regrettably, the indicator of women's participation in political life, as well as the lack of state initiatives and political will for women’s promotion, is still a challenge in Georgia. As a result, low participation of women in the decision-making processes negatively affects advocacy of gender sensitive policy and implementation of gender-balanced policy.

It should be noted that in the Global Gender Gap Index 2017, Georgia ranked 114^th among 144 countries according to women's political participation and women's representation in the Parliament. According to the data of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Georgia ranked 124^th among 193 countries with 24 women in the Parliament as of March 1, 2017.

The Public Defender hopes that the Parliament of Georgia will support the initiative aimed at increasing women's political participation in order to promote democratic development of the country.