The project aims at strengthening the capacity of authorities and professionals to prevent and protect children from sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and other forms of violence and to promote child-friendly practices in Georgia. Through the project, the state response towards child sexual abuse is enhanced and the development of a child-friendly justice system further supported in Georgia.

Georgia ratified the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of children against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, also known as the “Lanzarote Convention” in 2014. The Lanzarote Convention is the most ambitious and comprehensive international legal instrument aimed at preventing and protecting children from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse and prosecuting perpetrators. It requires the state parties to criminalise all kinds of sexual offences against children and adopt specific legislation and policy measures to prevent sexual violence, protect victims and prosecute perpetrators.

The Council of Europe Guidelines on child-friendly justice (2010) recall, promote and reinforce many universal and European standards. The Guidelines give a concrete regional dimension to children’s rights standards designed internationally, in particular the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and the United Nations Guidelines on Justice in matters involving Child Victims and Witnesses of Crime (2005). They strengthen these tools while offering to go further. Moreover, the guidelines are based on the European Convention on Human Rights and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights whose judgments are binding.