We, the cosigner organizations, express deep concern on the alleged facts of sexual harassment, which have been revealed after nomination of our colleague Zviad Devdariani’s candidacy for a vacant position of GPB’s[1]Board of Trustee.

First of all, we would like to express our full solidarity to those women who consider themselves victims of sexual violence or harassment. Georgian Democratic Initiative proposes free legal aid to all of them to protect their rights.

We should also note, we do not assess those parts of outspoken stories that concern private life and moral values of persons as we believe it is fundamental right of an individual to decide what is moral and what is immoral. However, if a human action is expressed in disrespecting other people’s freedoms, we will criticize it. 

We, the NGOs working on human rights, feel greater responsibility about the fact that we could not prevent such actions among us. Now it is important to break a silence and transform the recent developments into strong impetus for struggle against sexual violence and harassment towards women. We believe this problem is very complex and requires not only legislative amendments, but also specific educational and preventive measures. The role of civil society is very important in this process.

We should also emphasize that considering the extremely negative legal and other circumstances that can be followed by accusing a person of sexual violence, only thorough study of each and every case can lead to adequate protection of potential victim, as well as prevention of similar actions.

Georgian Democratic Initiative (GDI)

Institute for Democracy and Safe Development (IDSD)

Transparency International Georgia (TI)