In 2009 by the order of the President in the law about “domestic violence” were made some amendments .According to Article 14 the period of “Suspending Order” was increased from 3 months to 6 month . By this low victims of domestic violence get more protection from the Government . Since then women have talked about their family problems more openly and have more often called police for help . Because of this the role of police has increased .According to the information from Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia At nigh hours one from every four calls is connected with domestic violence . Though some cases show that methods used by the police still need to be improved and there is a lot to think about how to make the role of police more affective.
The respondent who wanted to stay anonym tells the part of her family story when she decided to stop her violent husband with the help of police .”Afther 15 years of living together I permanently became the subject of violence from my . Once I heard the information on Tv that a special law was passed against this kind of violence . During one incident I decided to call the police and ask for help .The police arrived and talked to my husband and made him to write a special letter where she promised never to do it again and they warned him that he would be arrested if he behaved violently towards me .After that I though that my husband would be afraid and I always repeated that I would call the police in case of violence . But when this happened and I called the police for help they appeared more loyal and told me the only thing they could do was to help me to leave the house “
About the same kind of problems talks Anti –trafficking and Anti-Domestic Violence Program Assistant Nino Chikhladze she says : “ People often come to our office with similar complaints. Recently the polices has issued less orders which give the victim protection within six month .We have kept statistics for several years and it shows that the orders issued this year are half of the number which was issued last year.
To explain this I asked a policeman but he avoided to talk about the reasons of decries of order numbers but he confirmed that police gets more calls connected with domestic violence .
Marina Chitaishvili says “ The order never solves the problem of domestic violence if we study the practice of prevention of Domestic Violence in developed countries we will see that this kind of orders are used only when the situation is very hard and all the other ways were tried .We must mainly work on prevention that means improving social and economic conditions of families .”
In 2000 a special center “The House ” for consulting women on subjects of domestic violence was established in Georgia . The Center has gathered a lot of experience on this problem. We have talked with the Psychologist of this house Nana Khoshtaria who says :” The family violence is a multi sided problem . We can’t demand from the police solving such a difficult problem as family relationships. Involving the police in family affairs may have a positive or a negative result in each case . According to our practice sometimes it makes the violent person more aggressive . but as there are cases when the problem has been solved by the help of police it means that the correct use of this low may be effective” .
In 2009 a special council was formed To make changes in this low. The document was worked out where the main strategy was looking for the ways of preventing domestic violence .This document meant founding rehabilitation centers not only for victims but also for violent people. there was also mentioned about preparing social workers . Though these recommendation were not fulfilled .The shelter for victims of domestic violence is just two small rooms on the territory of the “Shelter for Victims of Trafficking”. And the center for rehabilitation of violent people doesn’t exist at all .Which is very important according to nana Khoshtaria who says :“ To take the practice of the countries which are experienced in solving similar problems shows that the rehabilitation centers for violent people are essential because a violent person has just two options go to this center of to prison”.
The organization who worked on this problem in Georgia consider informing public on the subject as their main goal . Most women in Georgia don’t realize what domestic violence means . Many cases which are considered as domestic violence in developed countries Georgian women don’t take as violence because of traditions of our country.
Government and Nongovernment organizations which work on these problems together say that existing of this low is very important because domestic violence is one of the hardest problems in our county. They encourage women to fight against domestic violence but it is not clear what kind of sources the Government offers to help these women .
