On November 19-23, 2016, Deputy Public Defender of Georgia Ekaterine Skhiladze and employees of the Public Defender's Office paid a visit to Poland in order to get information about the situation of human rights and share the policy on vulnerable groups.

Within the framework of the study visit, meetings were held with representatives of state agencies, internationaland local NGOs; including the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Affairs, Office of the Prime Minister, Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, Office of Children’s Ombudsman,OSCEOffice forDemocraticInstitutionsandHuman Rights, Helsinki Committee forHuman Rightsand NGO working on homophobia-related issues.

At the meetings, the Polish side focused on issues, such as the financing of victims of domestic violence, programs for persons with disabilities, assistance of socially vulnerable persons, etc. There was also a discussion on the practice of implementation of international commitments in Poland.

The delegation of the Public Defender's Office of Georgia briefed the representatives of the Polish governmental and non-governmental sector of the main problems, as well as progress in the field of human rights in Georgia. The discussion showed that Georgia and Poland have some common challenges and the parties discussed the effective methods of fighting against them.