Training sessions on the enforcement of anti-discrimination legislation were launched for public servants in Adjara Autonomous Republic on November 1. Training sessions have been organized by Open Society Georgia Foundation. Representatives of Adjara’s Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, Khulo and Shuakhevi Municipalities are participating in the training sessions. The training was preceded by the research on how effectively the Law on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination is fulfilled in practice, how well public servants understand the equality principle and how they manage to observe the principle of equality and prevent the instances of discrimination in their everyday activities as well as in a particular context.
The research and the training are part of the project implemented by OSGF’s EU Integration Program with the support of the Embassy of Kingdom of the Netherlands. The purpose of the project is to promote effective implementation of Georgia’s anti-discrimination legislation and especially of the Law of Georgia on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination.
The Constitution of Georgia, Georgia’s international agreements on human rights, as well as Georgian legislation provide strong equality guarantees. By adopting the Law of Georgia on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination in 2014, the anti-discrimination legislation acquired an additional important lever for combating discrimination. However, to have a real effect, it is decisive how the powerful anti-discrimination legislation is fulfilled at various levels of governance, how individual officials understand this legislation and its requirements, how ready the court is to explain frequently difficult requirements of equality and add real power to the legislative guarantees of equality.
