The present report offers information about the study of individual cases of early age marriages by the Department of Gender Equality of the Public Defender's Office, monitoring of efforts of relevant agencies and analysis of information meetings.

One of the directions of the Public Defender's Office is prevention of early age marriages. In 2015-2016, the Department of Gender Equality held a lot of meetings in the municipal centers of Samtskhe-Javakheti, Kvemo Kartli, Kakheti and Adjara regions with the aim to analyze the obtained information and identify existing problems and possible solutions.

The study of situation showed that the main challenges are the low level of public awareness, gaps in service delivery and ineffective response mechanism. These problems are particularly obvious in the mountainous areas and in the regions populated by ethnic minorities, where access to services is complicated by a number of reasons.

On 16 December 2015, the Parliament of Georgia discussed and adopted a bill, which had been prepared on the basis of the Public Defender’s legislative proposal, in the third reading. According to the amendment, marriage registration rules for persons between 17 and 18 years of age has changed so that only the court will be authorized to issue a marriage license.In addition, a worthy condition for registration of marriage was clarified and the term of validity for the provision was defined as one year.

The report is supported by the British Embassy Project "Girls’ rights protection and prevention of early age marriages”.

See the electronic version of the report