The Union Sapari held a presentation of a legislative proposal and a research related to the problem of sexual harassment at Hotel Fabrika on February 21.
Baia Pataraia, the organization’s executive director and co-author of the legislative proposal, spoke about the need for introducing legislative regulations on sexual harassment in Georgia. Pataraia said that the research “Sexual Harassment in Public Space: Analysis of Legislative Practice” and an information campaign “What Happened in the Street” launched today aim to better protect the rights of victims of sexual harassment in public space (an electronic version of the above mentioned legislative proposal is available here).
Giorgi Burjanadze, OSGF’s human rights program manager, noted that Georgia faces a lot of difficulties in terms of legislative regulation and enforcement related to sexual harassment and Open Society Georgia Foundation stands ready to assist in overcoming these difficulties.
The research “Sexual Harassment in Public Space: Analysis of Legislative Practice” was presented by its author, lawyer and gender researcher, Ana Iluridze. She noted that the work aimed to review legislative regulations of other countries.
MP Mariam Jashi, who also is a member of the Gender Equality Council at the Georgian Parliament, focused on those legislative and enforcement problems, which may accompany the above mentioned legislative initiative.
Along with presentation of the research and legislative proposal on February 21, a social campaign against sexual harassment made a start. The campaign aims to attract public attention to sexual harassment as a form of discrimination against women. Any persons, who have ever become victims of sexual harassment and who want to share their own experience with others, can take part in the campaign through posting their own stories on a specific Facebook page (Facebook page of the campaign What Happened in the Street is available at the following link).
By the end of the presentation, in frames of the social campaign “What Happened in the Street,” a stencil against sexual harassment was attached to the wall of the Hotel Fabrika.
