“Here Women Have No Rights and They Are Blind…”

We heard the stories of three women in the village of Jigrasheni in the Ninotsminda District and initially, the stories seemed quite very ordinary. Women, having got used to hard work, do not complain about poor life; they are telling you about their everyday life without any regret.  

You will notice a half-ruined house as soon as you reach the village of Jigarasheni. A woman is working in the yard behind of the house. She is putting manure briquettes used for heating in the sun. The weight of a single briquette is about three kilos and the woman is carrying nearly one thousand of them. The weight of the briquettes is added with the unbearable heat. The woman is working without looking up. She looked around when the dog started barking. She hid her hands in the apron and approached me.

Forty-year-old Darejan Ezekian is a single mother.

“I live with my daughter at home. My husband has gone to Moscow for several years already. But he cannot send us money saying he has no money. I have a cow, I get milk and we earn our living with that,” said she.

Men do manure briquettes in the village of Dukhabors. But in this family Darejan Ezekiani is doing the job.

-Is not it difficult to make a manure briquette?

-How can it be easy? First of all you put your hands in manure, you have to press it in the box and then you have to take it out and there are thousands of other things you have to do. The man has left us and is taking care of himself only. As for us, we are to look after the family,” said the women in a tired and annoyed voice.

Forty-four-year-old Karine Oganesian also lives in the village of Jigrasheni. She is also a single mother and lives with old parents, a son, a daughter-in-law and a grandchild at home.

Nobody works besides Karine in their family. Her wage of 120 lari is enough for bread, sugar and cereal for her little grandchild.

“The child needs many things-at least you have to feed her with sweet semolina,” said Karine Oganesian.

Karine works as a milkmaid on the village farm. “I milk twenty cows a day. It is not difficult, one can get used to everything. Initially it was difficult but there was no more way out and I endured the difficulties. Only I work from my family so I agree to do any kind of job to keep the family,” said the woman.

The village of Jigrasheni is five or six kilometers away from Ninotsminda. The villagers have to walk three kilometers to get to the central motorway.

Maktaghin Poghosian is a six-month-pregnant and is expecting twins. So the three-kilometer-long road to the central motor-way becomes longer than hundred kilometers. Her family does not have a car and the bus does not run in the village so she ahs to walk.

“I must visit the doctor in Ninotsminda by all means. I have not visited the doctor for a long time already and I want to know how my babies feel. It is not so difficult to walk from here, but on my way back I have to climb up the rise,” said Maktaghin Poghosian.

In Ninotsminda there is no organization to protect women’s rights. Local resident, Ofelia Petrosian draws her attention to that problem. Initially she smiled and said that her “emancipation’ has resulted from the high education she received in Russia.”

“Most women do not know anything about their rights. Almost everyday, boys kidnap girls to marry them. Little girls are ashamed to return back to their families. Our women are illiterate. They can not receive any high education because they are getting married from the tenth or eleventh grade of the school and then they sit at home. It will not be an exaggeration of the problem if I say that the women have no right and they are blind. They notice only the necessity of bread in their families. If they are harassed they cannot even think of applying to police for help. So, local women have to endure much,” said Ofelia Petrosian.

Gulo Kokhodze, Ninotsminda