On April 13, 2017, the Public Defender of Georgia held a press conference together with Erica Kvapilova, Representative of UN Women in Georgia, and spoke about the violence against women, the worrying scale of gender-related killing of women and the necessity for monitoring cases of femicide.

According to the Public Defender, 21 cases of femicide were reported in 2016. A few days ago, a man stabbed his wife, who died of 8 wounds in her breast, and this was not the first case of femicide in 2017.

It should be noted that despite the seriousness of the problem, the state has not developed an approach for the prevention of similar cases, evaluation of risks and prevention of recurrence of violence. The situation is further complicated by the lack of statistical data on the cases of femicide, relevant analysis and preventive steps based on the analysis.

Dubravka Simonovic, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, called on all states in 2015 to commit to prevent gender-related killing of women, to establish a femicide watch and to publish detailed analysis of the cases on November 25, each year. It should be noted that no effective steps have been taken in this direction.

“Bearing in mind the seriousness of the problem of femicide and its negative impact on the situation of equality and human rights in the country, I declare that the Public Defender’s Office will be the institution which, within the mandate granted by law, will monitor the gender-related killing of women, attempted killing of women and each case of pushing a woman to suicide,” said Public Defender Ucha Nanuashvili.

During the monitoring, the Public Defender’s Office will analyze the court decisions in detail in order to evaluate the real scale of the problem of femicide, the applied measures of protection and prevention and the drawbacks relating to the issue; in addition, it will study the statistical data and information on investigations and criminal persecutions launched by law-enforcement agencies.

“Monitoring of cases of femicide is important and effective mechanism for the prevention of the crime”, said Erika Kvapilova, Representative of UN Women in Georgia. She thanked the Public Defender’s Office – the second ombudsman’s office in the world (the first is Argentina), which undertook the responsibility for monitoring the cases of femicide.

Ucha Nanuashvili expressed hopes that the state, governmental and non-governmental organizations will closely cooperate with the Public Defender’s Office in the process of monitoring.