International Women Organizations
Women's Initiative for Equality
Address: 11th floor, M. Aleksidze
street 1, Tbilisi, 380093. Georgia.
Telephone: (995-32)334081, Fax: (995-32)334163, E-mail:
wie@ip.osgf.ge
Contact person: Lela Gaprindashvili, Chair, WIE
[When WIE was formed] | [Who started the WIE] | [Why the WIE was established] |
[Status
of the WIE]
[Who primarily benefits from WIE's
activities] | [Structure
of the WIE]
[Activities of the WIE]
| [Does the WIE attempt to influence
legislation]
WIE's main goal
Main goal of WIE is to describe current situation and establish the data base of the women's real rights in Georgia (as well as in Caucasus), and on this background promote democratic family values and support women's participation in social life.
WIE was established in March 1997, Tbilisi, Georgia.
Founders of the Organization are: Lela Gaprindashvili, Marina Elbakidze Nino Djanelidze.
Lela Gaprindashvili - born in August 2, 1967, town Kutaisi, Georgia; graduated the Philosophy Faculty of Tbilisi State University (TSU) in 1989; completed postgraduate research in the history of philosophy (the thesis "Rationalism and Irrationalism in F. Dostoyevsky's Works") at TSU in 1992; foreign languages - Russian and German; married, two children; the permanent residence - Tbilisi, Georgia.
Marina Elbakidze - Born March 13, 1961, Georgia; 1985 graduated Faculty of Psuchology, Tbilisi State University; 1985-89 Postgraduate Studies, Institute of Psychology, Academy of Science of Georgia (the thesis "Social Psychology of Cooperative Groups"). 1995 - present, Lecturer, general psychology, Tbilisi State University. Was participated in various research projects, "Demographic and Migration Process in Georgia", "Attitudes toward Different Religious Confessions" etc. Languages: Georgian (native), Russian, German, English (elementary).
Nino Djanelidze - born in June 18, 1966, town Tbilisi. graduated the Philosophy Faculty of Tbilisi State University (TSU) in 1989; Was participated in various conferences end initiatives. Was participated in the sociological research conducted by WIE. foreign languages - Russian and English; married, one child; the permanent residence - Tbilisi, Georgia.
A status of a woman in both society and a family remains to be one of the topical problem of the present. The issues having been raised on this ground are urgent and painful even for leading states. (USA was the pioneer country where first sociological researches were carried out on the gender issues). The situation is much more uncertain and complicated in developing countries, in particular in Georgia, where democracy is in ongoing process of taking a shape and community relationships are regulated by the rules basing on traditional values.
Despite of certain adaptation of our society to drastic social changes, it has still remained high degree of traditionality. For instance, although nowadays a role of a women in Georgia as an economic provider had been significantly enforced, the role of a decision-maker in a family still remains to be a prerogative of a man. In other terms, here takes place certain abuse of mutual relationships between functions of bred-winner and decision-maker in a Georgian family. The same picture can be observed at the society level. Although today's women are actively participated in economic and political life of the country, low waged jobs are considered as something "specific for women", but not those such are "high ranked positions", i. e. those are well paid vacations. This kind of the predisposition of the society to the position of a woman can be contributed to the fact that women are rarely considered as playing key social role.
Since Soviet regime, preserved laws make men and women legally equal in their rights (this is currently acting legislation which regulates woman's rights in Georgia) but essentially, they can be defined as perfunctory, having no outlined features, thus making them inert and fictions. In most of cases they do not include specific mechanisms being able guarantee woman's rights. Consequences are rather than serious - we have apparent misbalance between duties and rights of a woman, resulting in various urgent problems of the society. For example, though men and women are equal in their hereditary rights men are considered having preference in heredity, due to dominating traditional opinion. In order to avoid social censure women often agree to refuse their hereditary rights. That's take another spread case: regardless of equality of sexual freedoms of both sexes public opinion is pretty loyal to man' sexual responsibility, being meanwhile quite intolerant to any deviations of woman's sexual behavior.
We have the situation when issues of women's real rights are out of public view and the legislature process associated with this problem is in fact hampered (because just like here all is OK) results in dissonance between legislation space and real state of women's rights and have painful consequences in society life, thus inhibiting a process of reformation of our society.
There are both governmental and non-governmental groups in Georgia, which focus their activities towards women's issues, but almost all of them are working with marginalized groups of women, i.e. prostitutes, socially undefended mothers, addicts etc. But our activity is focused on to provide the society with objective data of factual situation about women's rights and disseminate those values of modern democratic society, which determine equality of sexes. We are especially emphasized on young generation. Our goal is to proliferate these values through young Georgian women.
Despite the fact that there are either governmental programs and several non-governmental groups which make efforts to improve women's life in Georgia, yet no substantial investigation was carried out, which could give us answers to following questions: What is really going on with women's rights in this country? At what degree Georgian women are involved in social life? How traditional family values and established centuries-old roles of sexes make women and men unequal in their rights and duties? How can our society overcome this barrier? etc.
The organization has international status. According to its statement, there is no limitation of nationality for organization members and activities. Currently the Organization's activity is spread throughout Georgia but be are going to get in touch step by step with other Caucasian regions.
Who primarily benefits from WIE's activities
Promotion of the Organization's project not only will advance gender studies in Georgia but also will help us concentrate and classify existing data about the problem. It will advance process of taking this problem into public consideration. The Organization will systematically provide recommendations to those government and non-governmental units, which have relationships with similar issues, thus improving their efficacy. Elaborated methods will make us able to perform the work (report) periodically (annually) and observe changes (dynamics) in situation about woman's rights.
According to the statement of WIE, The Organization is self-governed group. All members (15 members) are equally participated in decision-making process.
They elect - Chair and assistant Chair, who govern WIE and execute the decisions made by meeting of the members.
Currently the organization has no permanent executive staff (but there will be opened staff positions, as it become possible). Depending on a concrete project, members of the WIE share their functions based on voluntary principles. The Organization may hire experts on contract basis in order to perform concrete tasks (four experts and three students were deployed on contract ground during our last sociological research).
When planning our activities, we had intense consultations with both individuals and groups expected benefit from our group's activities. The consultations helps us to test our approaches and reveal transient problems. By consultations we provide certain feedback between WIE and the people who benefit from our activities.
WIE is a women's organization. All members of WIE are females but according to its statement, there is no gender limitations for organization members and activities.
Past activities
The Organization has carried out sociological and expert research towards Status-role distribution and values orientation in modern Georgian family, in the frame of United Nations Development Program. Based on obtained results there was issued a booklet: "Social Changes and the Georgian Family", in both English and Georgian (the English text of booklet is enclosed in separate fail).
Organization members took part in various conferences of women's issues. The Organization has organized two seminars of women's problems in Tbilisi and Kutaisi in 1997. Members of WIE participated in discussion on gender issues organized by Radio Liberty.
Present activities
At the present, the Organization has elaborated project proposal: "Rights and Real Rights of a Woman in Georgia (comparative analysis, conclusions, proposals)", in order to support a promotion of democratic values in a family and women's participation in social life. The project aims to provide comparative analysis of legislative environment and real rights of women in Georgia and on the basis of that work out concept and proposals correspondingly, for both government and non-government organizations in order to provide their further efforts towards either low-making and advancing different programs focused on improvement of situation about women's real rights, which will result in establishment of clear system of guides.
We are looking for financial support to carry out this project but, due to lack of our own office and equipment we also try to get a grant to overcome this initial problem in order to start wide-range activity.
Plans for the future
In the future, WIE plans to carry out surveys on the following themes:
Research - Current value orientations and status-role distribution in the Georgian family (to be implemented in all regions of Georgia); Correlation between women's rights and responsibilities; Women's roles in the family and the society, and correlation between these two; Non-Georgian families and women's status in them (given Georgia's multi-ethnic nature); Refugee-women's problems; Problems of women-victims of violence; Crimes involving women.
Publishing - On the base of the collected data and provided analysis issuing the brochures around women related problems (like already issued one); WIE also considers it necessary to apply developed methods for monitoring; Georgia every year and publish its results in kind of a yearly report.
Seminars, conferences and working with media - WIE is going to organize seminars on results of the studies with participation of experts and wide range of representatives of the society; To contribute to public discussion in the press and on TV about women's problem.
Does the WIE attempt to influence legislation
Certainly yes. One of our main project, which we already described in the section B. implies a comparative analysis of the legislative environment and real rights of women in Georgia and on the basis of it work out concept and proposals correspondingly, for both government and non-governmental organizations in order to provide their further efforts towards either low-making and advancing different programs focused on improvement of situation about women's real rights, which will result in establishment of clear system of guides.
Realization of the project (see section B.) will be followed with booklet (a report) which is planned to be printed in both English and Georgian languages (approx. 70 pages) where: a) materials of various sociological assays and official statistical materials will be systematically analyzed and a paper giving notion of the situation about women's real rights will be issued; b) legal space created by those laws, legislative rules and subrules associated with aforementioned topics will be evaluated as the unity; c) a comparative analysis of legal and real rights of women will be done and the conclusions will be stated; d) based on these conclusions there will be done attempt to work out the conception how improve situation about women's rights and definitive recommendations for both government and non-government organizations. The book will be accompanied with a list of laws, documents, statistical dates etc. covering present topics.
The booklet will be distributed free among interested groups include parliamentarians and lowers. The results expressed in the booklet will also be promoted during seminars and conferences, also by means of newspaper articles, TV and Radio interviews.[When WIE was formed] | [Who started the WIE] | [Why the WIE was established] |
[Status of the WIE]
[Who primarily benefits from WIE's activities] | [Structure of the WIE]
[Activities of the WIE] | [Does the WIE attempt to influence legislation]
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© Women's Initiative for Equality