Weak national machineries, insufficient professional staff, lack of preventive and protective social services are encountered problems in the region. Public institutions and a majority of NGOs, with the exception of few, have limited information on GBV and its different forms. They do not fully know what the state responsibilities are according to ratified international conventions such as CEDAW and the European Social Charter. Furthermore service training for relevant professional staff has been highly insufficient. The Police have received very limited training but other law enforcement professionals such as judges, prosecutors and lawyers often have no training on gender and GBV issues. Adequate training for other key target groups, such as health care staff, educators have also been close to non-existing.
The absence of state protection and prevention services for victims and potential victims of GBV is equally a problem. In cases where such institutions exist, they are NGO driven and extremely sensitive to the prevailing donor climate at all moments. Also, there are almost no community/family centers.
There is no gender statistics units in the state statistical institutions and no coordinated registration system on GBV. Furthermore there are problems in the reporting mechanism. For example, the vast majority of domestic violence cases are not reported, as the issues are often considered taboo. Registration systems usually do not have disaggregated records on gender and it is impossible to understand the prevalence of GBV from police records. At the same time, there is no follow-up mechanism for the few recorded cases.
Due to above-mentioned reasons there is a need for capacity building of national machineries and service providers in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The capacity building activities include trainings for professional staff in national machinery and service staff in institutions, development of guidelines and models for preventive, protective and rehabilitative services and building gender statistics units.
Capacity Building in Armenia
Capacity Building in Azerbaijan
Capacity Building in Georgia
