On 3rd November 2022, with the support of the Council of Europe Office in Georgia the first steering committee was held within the framework of the project “Ensuring child-friendly justice in Georgia: preventing and protecting children from violence, including in the digital environment.”
During meeting, the project workplan until December 2023 was presented with the aim of identifying needs of the project partners.
Ovidiu Majina, (Project Manager, Children's Rights Division, Council of Europe) and Sopio Asatiani, (Senior Project Officer, Council of Europe Office in Georgia) presented Project priorities and workplan activities, which refer to improvement of Legal, policy and institutional framework for effective response to sexual violence cases against children, as well as strengthening capacities of professionals within the same scope, addressing awareness-raising and prevention issues.
The meeting was attended, and the welcome speech was delivered by Mirian Megrelishvili (Head of the Professional Development Center (Division) of the Prosecutor’s office of Georgia) and by Ana Pachuashvili (Head of the Human Rights Protection Division of the Department of Human Rights Protection and Investigation Quality Monitoring, Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia). They outlined the challenges that county faces in regards to advancing children’s rights in Georgia and expressed full support to the project and the work plan.
The meeting was attended by the representatives of state agencies of Georgia,(Ministry of justice of Georgia, Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia, The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, The Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee - Parliament of Georgia , Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Affairs of Georgia, Ministry of Education And Science of Georgia, Administration of Government of Georgia, The High School of Justice, Ministry of Internal Affairs - Academy of the MIA), Public Health Foundation of Georgia (NGO), the Georgian Bar Association and the Public Defender's Office of Georgia.
The project aims to support legal and policy reform in line with the Council of Europe’s standards, raise awareness on child sexual exploitation and other forms of violence, as well as build capacity of the relevant professionals to respond effectively to child abuse cases including in the digital environment.
