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Violence as a Lifestyle

June 29, 2015
 
Nino Kimadze

“You have to beat your wife daily, so she listens to you – this is my husband’s motto, which he perfectly followed for years and was happy with it,” –the victim of a domestic violence told humanrights.ge.

According to the Public Defender’s Parliamentary report 2014, the scale of domestic violence and violence against women in Georgia is of high concern. According to the report, different aspects of violence against women have been revealed in our country. Violation of women’s rights includes psychological, physical and sexual abuse. “We felt intensity of the problem in 2014, when 17 women died as a result of domestic violence”, - reads the 2014 report of the Public Defender. 

Our respondent, whose conditional name is Natela, lived with her husband for 45 years and endured physical and psychological violence from him all that time. According to her, she was hiding the family conflict because of shame. 
“For years, I could not even drink water or go to bathroom without the permission of my husband. I was serving him as a slave, and after some time, I was doing all this by my own desire. I did not want others to know about our family condition, I was ashamed. I was begging him to beat me quietly, so the neighbors would not hear it,”- said Mrs. Natela. 
During one of the quarrels, Natela’s backbone was damaged; as a result, she cannot walk independently. As she says, during the last incident, the husband had locked her in the house and was physically abusing her. After this, the police took her to a shelter. Now, the State Fund for the Protection and Assistance of Victims of Human Trafficking defends her. 

Humanrights.ge visited the fund and had a conversation with a PR manager Keti Beroshvili. According to her, the trafficking fund organizes educational-informational meetings, because the facts of violence usually result from wrong public awareness. 

“The State Fund for Trafficking works on public awareness rising. In particular, we conduct campaigns with different target audiences. Meetings are held in Tbilisi, as well as in regions, with the high school students and teachers. We inform them about the services that are available to help women who are victims of domestic violence. We think that it is very important to inform the society and explain the essence of this problem,”-said Keti Beroshvili. 

Lawyers of the Fund protect the interests of women who are victims of violence. Now, there are ongoing civil and criminal cases in the court, which are led by the lawyers of the fund. 

The lawyer of the State Fund for Protection and Assistance of (statutory) Victims of Human Trafficking Irakli Tchkonia thinks that some positive processes are going on in the legislation regarding the elimination of violence. 
“Since 2012, domestic violence has become systematic and the state decided to solve this problem according to criminal procedure. Now the Criminal Code has amended article 126, according to which the systematic domestic violence is punishable. According to the latest changes, sanctions against the offender have been increased. Imprisonment has been increased up to 3 years,”- says Irakli Tchkonia. 
Executive Director of the union “Sapari” Baia Pataraia says that despite the frequency of violence against women, very few crimes of violence are revealed. As she said, according to the statistics, every eleventh woman in Georgia is a victim of violence, but authenticity of this number is questionable, because very often, facts of violence are not exposed. 

“At least one person in a week applies to our organization for help. There are different forms of violence, but mostly, the victims of violence come to us when they are abused physically. They rarely speak about domestic sexual violence, only after having therapeutic courses. They also find it difficult to speak about physical violence. Psychological violence is always recognizable, because without psychological trauma they would not even address to us for help,”- says Baia Pataraia. According to Pataraia, domestic violence is a result of gender inequality, which is justified by majority of society. 

Associate professor of Ilia State University, psychologist Rusudan Mirtskhulava also speaks about incorrect attitude of society. According to her, almost all women, with few exceptions, feels aggression from their male partners, and often this behavior is justified by the society, especially in a community, which has stereotypical and patriarchal ideology. 

“A very large percentage of women hide the facts of violence, because there is a specific dogma established in society, according to which a woman has to endure and turn a blind eye on everything to save her family,” –says Rusudan Mirtskhulava.
 
Mirtskhulava thinks that the main reason for hiding and enduring the violence is a lack of financial independence. Mostly, women are financially depended on men and this forces them to hide the facts of violence. 

The Ministry of Justice has developed legislative changes in order to eliminate violence against women and domestic violence. Illegal spying, electronic or phone communication, which is systematic and threatening, is punished with imprisonment up to 2 years. This is one-step forward to eliminate violence against women. 
Despite the steps made to improve a state of women’s rights, to achieve gender equality remains as an important challenge. 

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