Skip to main content
Eurasianet

Main Menu

  • Regions
  • Topics
  • Media
  • About
  • Search
  • Newsletter
  • русский
X

Caucasus

Armenia
Azerbaijan
Georgia

Central Asia

Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan

Conflict Zones

Abkhazia
Nagorno Karabakh
South Ossetia
Transnistria

Eastern Europe

Belarus
Moldova
Russia
The Baltics
Ukraine

Eurasian Fringe

Afghanistan
China
EU
Iran
Mongolia
Pakistan
Syria
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States
X

Academics

Demographics
History
Law
Science

Economics

Agriculture
Banking and Finance
Belt and Road Initiative
Business
EEU
Innovation and Technology
Investment
Mining
Oil and Gas
SCO
Transparency

Politics

Authoritarianism
Cult of Personality
Dissent
Elections
Foreign Policy
Human Rights
Illiberalism
National Identity
Press Freedom
Propaganda
Rule of Law
Soft Power

Security

Arms Sales
Black Sea
Caspian Sea
Conflicts
CSTO
Energy
Narcotics Trafficking
Radicalism

Society

Arts and Culture
Diaspora
Education
Environment
Infrastructure
Interethnic Relations
Language
LGBT
Media
Minorities
Public Health
Religion
Rural Life
Social Media
Values
Women's Rights
X

Visual Stories

Audio
Interactive
Video

Blogs

Tamada Tales
The Bug Pit

Podcasts

Expert Opinions
The Central Asianist
X
You can search using keywords to narrow down the list

Georgians Speak Out against Wife-Killings

Giorgi Lomsadze Oct 21, 2014

English teacher Maka Tsivtsivadze was instructing a class in downtown Ilia State University on October 17, when her ex-husband, Lasha Maghradze, peeped in and asked her to step out into the hall. He shot her with a gun he had concealed, and then killed himself. Tsivtsivadze died of her wounds in the hospital.

It was the most brazen in a wave of femicides that has shocked Georgia this year, but it was not the last one. Just two days later, a 60-year-old man killed his wife in a remote village. Earlier, an ex-husband shot dead his former wife on a street in Tbilisi and also killed her brother who tried to rescue her.

The number of women killed this year is believed now to stand at  23, based on an earlier assessment by human rights defender Ucha Nanuashvili .

Amidst the search for an explanation -- and a solution -- to the series of wife-murders, a group of activists on October 21 held a protest-performance in front of the country's government headquarters in Tbilisi to pressure officials to come up with a response. The demonstrators, mostly women, blindfolded themselves, taped their mouths shut, and clanked spoons on saucepans. "The government has not even taken in the problem, much less is doing anything about it,” one of the participants, art critic and feminist activist Teo Khatiashvili, said.

President Giorgi Margvelashvili called for making 2015 a year of women, and Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili promised to prioritize tackling domestic violence, but nothing concrete has been offered. A comment from female Justice Minister Tea Tsulukiani that Georgia’s crime level has not increased, "it's just husbands are killing their wives,” has hardly helped to reassure critics.

But Tsulukiani herself has expressed dissatisfaction that the death of a former colleague, killed in May by her ex-husband, is being investigated under the criminal code as a premeditated attempt to cause grievous bodily harm, rather than as a murder. The government, she contined, is working together on a "mechanism" to stop such killings.

Protesters, for one, have demanded that police take women's complaints about threats from abusive husbands or ex-husbands more seriously. Tsivtsivadze repeatedly asked police for protection. Similar requests failed to save the life of 22-year old Salome Jorbendze, shot dead by her ex-husband, a police officer, in July.

Violence against women in Georgia is typically linked to the patriarchal, it's-a-man's-world culture inherent in the Caucasus. Khatiashvili believes that poverty, constant stress and an embittered, post-war mood is exacerbating the situation. Another factor, she said, is the jaundice against women who increasingly challenge traditional views on gender roles and choose to pursue a professional career and walk out on abusive relationships.

 

Popular

Kazakhstan: Authorities to limit media access to government events
Almaz Kumenov
Uzbekistan asks bond-buyers to be its valentine with $1 billion sale
Maximilian Hess
Armenia adopts plan for “economic revolution”
Ani Mejlumyan
Eurasianet
  • About
  • Team
  • Contribute
  • Republishing
  • Privacy Policy
  • Corrections
  • Contact
Eurasianet © 2018