On 27-29 September, 2016, meetings were held between the institutions of the Public Defender of Georgia and the Danish Parliamentary Ombudsman in the Danish capital of Copenhagen. The aim of the meetings was to share experience on the issues of asylum seekers and refugees. Natia Katsitadze, First Deputy Public Defender of Georgia, Tamta Papuashvili, Manager of the Project “Support to the Public Defender’s Office in Studying the Situation of Refugees, Persons with Humanitarian Status and Asylum Seekers”, and Beka Javakhadze, Chief Specialist of the Department of Protection of Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, took part in the meetings.

Several important meetings were held during the visit both with represetnatves of the Danish Parliamentary Ombudsman's Office and the leadership of the centers for accommodation of asylum seekers.

Represetnatves of the Parliamentary Ombudsman's International and National Preventive Mechanism briefed the Georgian delegation of the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s activities in the field of survey of issues of asylum seekers and refugees and presented extensive presentations about the mandate of the Ombudsman and the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism, including the monitoring of the Immigration Service and the centers for accommodation of asylum seekers.

During the visit, the Georgian delegation also held meetings with representatives of the Danish Immigration Service and visited the centers for accommodation of asylum seekers. Very important information was exchanged about the best experience of Denmark in previous years when the country received a large number of migrants, including asylum seekers, which led to relevant changes in the country: the Ministry of Immigration, Integration and Accommodation was set up, which combined the Migration Service with its 7 divisions of determination of the refugee status and a division of the country of origin.

During the visit, monitoring was carried out in the Sendholm center for asylum seekers, where a meeting was held with a representative of the Migration Service. The function of the Sendholm center is to distribute asylum seekers. The center is administered by the theInternationalCommittee of theRed Cross. Visits were also paid to the Hellebæk closed center of asylum seekers deprived of liberty by the Danish law and the Sjulsmark center of asylum seekers, who were denied status and are subject to deportation.

The Public Defender’s Office will analyze the acquired knowledge and the best experience of a successful country and will use it during its activities aimed at protection of the rights of asylum seekers and refugees, as well as improvement of their situation.

The visit was carried out within the framework of the project “Support to the Public Defender’s Office in Studying the Situation of Refugees, Persons with Humanitarian Status and Asylum Seekers” by the financial support from the UNHCR Regional Office in the South Caucasus.