On April 16, 2018, Nino Lomjaria, Public Defender of Georgia, addressed the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia with regard to the cases of violation of the referral procedure by general educational institutions.

The Department of Gender Equality of the Public Defender's Office has studied a number of cases of early marriage/engagement, when general educational institutions were aware of the marriage/ engagement but did not apply to relevant state agencies.

Despite the fact that early marriage violates the child’s right to health, education, equality, protection from violence and exploitation, there are frequent cases when no measures are taken to protect the child’s interests, the reasons of which are traditional factor, willing marriage or the couple’s desire to live together.

Teachers play one of the most important roles in the prevention of early marriage. It is their obligation to inform relevant agencies of early marriage as soon as they are informed of it. However, regrettably, people working at school often do not know anything about the obligations under the referral document.

In the recommendation, the Public Defender requests to raise awareness of teachers of the obligations relating to early marriage issues and tighten control over the violation of the requirements of the referral document.