Goals

Problem statement:

According to the data of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), approximately 14 million girls under 18 get married in a year, 38 000 in one day, and 13 girls in 30 seconds.
According to 2012-2013 statistics 17% of girls living in Georgia got married before becoming 18 years old. This is stated in the 2012-2013 reports of public defender. Georgia takes the second place with the indicator of teenage pregnancy in Eastern Europe. In the February of 2014 Georgia set a record: it received 163 recommendations in the field of human rights from the UN.
We also have a recommendation from CEDAW which calls on the government of Georgia to fulfil the obligations and provide a new healthcare strategy, with the guarantee of family planning and safe abortion service delivery. In these recommendations the main attention is given to the conditions of the women living in rural areas. CEDAW recommendations is also about the obligation of providing age-appropriate sexual education, which also concerns SRHR. However, the Ministry of Education and Science, despite the declared wish, cannot fulfil the mentioned recommendations due to the existing strong resistance. The recommendation envisages working out comprehensive educational program for pupils and at the same time, holding trainings for teachers.

How will your initiative achieve/contribute to this change?

Our organization (“Education and labor Association”) with the support of FRIDA is implementing a project whose main activity is: Classes of sexual education, which consists of up to ten video-lessons, the duration of each is 15-20 minutes, the videos will be sex-positive and inclusive, with a mentor. The videos will be about the following issues: the characteristics of the transition age, introduction to sexual anatomy, sexually transmitted diseases, early marriage, sexual violence, consent and informed sexual life; the issues will be worked out by gender specialists and psychologists. The videos will be “advertised” by means of Facebook and YouTube, in order to reach a larger target audience. We actually request to translate these videos into Azeri and Armenian languages, because in our experience the access to these issues is very low among ethnic minorities. One of the reasons is said to be the level of knowledge of Georgian language, so we think it will be very useful for them to translate these videos.

What will happen to your initiative and to the purchases?

We won’t need any items. we need services

How will initiative provide equal opportunity for men and women?

The videos are thematically equally targeted for girls and boys.