Since the initiation of the Russian draft law, we have launched a social campaign "No Russian law". Representatives of various fields of society and our female leaders actively participated in the campaign as volunteers.

All the Georgian people were united in the aforementioned contradictory process, which called up this draft law.

Our monitoring and advocacy team has started work on a new study - "Evaluation of the effectiveness of prevention tools of violence against women or/and domestic violence at the municipal level".

Monitoring is currently underway in the following target municipalities: Tkibuli, Baghdati, Terjola, Vani, Samtredia, Chokhatauri, Tsalenjikha, Zugdidi, Senak, Kobuleti.

On February 22, the Women Fund „Sukhumi“ participated in the preparatory consultation for the forthcoming 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in 2023 which focuses on “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”.

The consultation with all stakeholders, including Women CSO, international organizations and International NGOs was organized by the Government of Ukraine together with the UN Women. During the consultation the gendered implications of war on women and girls both inside and outside of Ukraine, as well as their role in leading and driving change was highlighted.

During the panel discussions different topics were explored, namely how technology and digital solutions are playing an integral role in addressing the socio-economic needs of war-effected women across the region, and how technologies and digital economy could efficiently facilitate gender responsive recovery and development and reduce existing gender digital gaps.

Council of Europe Office in Georgia  and the Governmental Administration hosted on 13 February a conference to present the recommendations provided to Georgia by GREVIO, the independent expert body which monitors the implementation of the Council of Europe  Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention), as well as by the Committee of the Parties to the Istanbul Convention. At the event, representatives of non-governmental organisations and academia together with the State agencies and Maria-Andriani Kostopoulou, GREVIO member and second vice-president of GREVIO, discussed the steps to take to implement the 16 recommendations approved by the Committee of the Parties to the Convention in December 2022. The recommendations are the most pressing as indicated in the first GREVIO baseline report on Georgia published in November 2022. Georgia is to submit a report on the implementation of the recommendations to the Committee of the Parties by the end of 2025.

In order to implement the National Human Rights Strategy for the years of 2022-2030, the Government of Georgia started working on the development of the new National Human Rights Action Plan. Members of the state agencies listed under the Government Decree N143 of March 2, 2022, representatives of international/donor organizations, as well as respresentatives of more than 80 NGOs attended the meeting, among Women Fund “Sukhumi”.

At the end of the meeting, the importance of the involvement of international and local non-governmental organizations in the drafting process of the National Human Rights Action Plan was once again underlined and the timeframe for their feedback on the first draft of the action plan was discussed. However, during the discussion, the representatives of local non-governmental organizations drew attention to the main challenge of cooperation on the part of state agencies, which implies not taking into account the recommendations offered by civil societies in the state policy. Of course, it makes each of us lose the motivation to work together. 

Our representative - Linda Chikhladze participated in the info-sharing meeting of the Secretariat of the Sustainable Development Goals Council.

The non-governmental organizations participating in the meeting received information regarding the mechanisms for promoting the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Among them, the activities and structure of the Sustainable Development Goals Council, the four thematic working groups included in it, and the opportunities and importance of being involved in them. Linda Chikhladze shared the best practices of the Women Fund “Sukhumi” work with them.

The Human Rights Protection and Investigation Quality Monitoring Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia (MIA) held a meeting with the Task Force on Ending Violence against Women and Girls (Task Force on EVAWG). Representatives of the international, non-governmental organizations working on EVAWG and the Public Defender's Office of Georgia also participated in the workshop. They discussed the outcome of the activities carried out in combating domestic violence and/or violence against women in recent years, the existing challenges and ways forward. The meeting was held with the initiative of the MIA, in cooperation with UN Women, within the framework of the UN Joint Programme "For Gender Equality" supported by Sweden.

In her speech, Linda Chikhladze focused on the need for additional child care services for the economic empowerment of women, and on the importance of early implementation of programs to correct the behavior of perpetrators for the effective prevention of violence against women.

On November 25, a march of the women's movement against sexual violence was held. Together with other solidarity groups, the Tbilisi representative office of the Women's Fund "Sukhumi" joined the march. The organizers and participants of the rally say that sexual acts with a woman without her consent are rape and violence. According to their own statement, this is recognized by international conventions and courts, but Georgian legislation does not recognize it.

Within the 16 days campaign against gender violence on November 25, the Anti-Violence Network of Georgia presented the program fathers violence behavior and correction, aiming to correct the behavior of fathers and support to become  as a supportive father. At the meeting, our representative - Linda Chikhladze, based on the findings of the monitoring report of the Women's Fund "Sukhumi" - “Importance of Behavior Change Programs of the Perpetrator at an Early Stage and Existing Best Practices", offered recommendations to the attendees about the importance of implementing the mentioned program at an early stage.

Linda Chikhladze, the representative of the Women's Fund "Sukhumi'' was invited to the working meeting held to develop the 2022-2025 gender strategy action plan of the Tbilisi Municipality Assembly. The meeting was chaired by Tinatin Nibloshvili, head of the Gender Equality Council of Tbilisi Municipality. The meeting was attended by Nino Burdzenidze, adviser to the city mayor on gender issues, Indira Robakidze - head of the Tbilisi Crisis Center, Ana Margiani - representative of the Academy of the Ministry of Finance, Sophia Chokheli -  representative of the Human Rights Protection and Monitoring Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Anna Lobzhanidze - representative of the Office of the Public Defender of Georgia.

Council members and invited guests talked about the five main goals of the action plan project, goals, objectives and forms of activities to be implemented.