At the 84th session of the CEDAW Committee, at the moment, the report of the Government of Georgia is being discussed. The report of Georgia was presented by Niko Tatulashvili, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Human Rights Protection. Georgia is represented by the Chair of the Permanent Parliamentary Gender Equality Council, Nino Tsilosani, Deputy Minister of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia, Tamar Barkalaya; Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Aleksandre Darakhvelidze; Other members of the Interagency Human Rights Council and Permanent Parliamentary Gender Equality Council. Ekaterine Skhiladze, the deputy ombudsman from the Office of the Public Defender, presented an oral report at the session. Today's session is attended by representatives of non-governmental organizations defending women's rights, including the director of the WIC, Elene Rusetskaya.

Women's political participation, changes in the law of mandatory quotas without consultation with women's rights defenders, strengthening and improvement of legislation on gender equality, adoption of a more comprehensive law on gender-based and domestic violence, access to justice for vulnerable women, gender statistics, awareness raising on the topic of gender equality and women's rights issues - these are part of questions which the committee members were interested in and asked the representatives of the Government of Georgia. In addition, the committee members had questions about the state's vision of trafficking and other international crimes, including international legislation on surrogacy, which can be used as a tool against child trafficking. There were also questions regarding the adoption of a new action plan against trafficking. The committee was interested in how many trafficking cases were registered and how many court decisions were made and asked for the last 5 years’ statistics to look through it. As part of the fight against trafficking, the committee was also interested in the situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. (as part of Georgia). The committee emphasized the necessity of creating services specifically designed for sexually abused children, especially girls.

Also, questions were asked concerning the preventive measures to avoid trafficking, the existing programs to support victims, and the innovative mechanisms for the reintegration of victims into society.

The second part of the session will continue in question-answer mode.