Council of Europe experts will visit Tbilisi, Georgia on 25-29 November 2019, to gather information on national legislation, policies and practice in preventing and fighting online and offline child sexual violence.

The Council of Europe delegation will meet with key stakeholders and national authorities to discuss the situation in Georgia, identify gaps in legislation, policies and practice, and gather the views and recommendations of participants. Key topics of discussion include:

- Substantive and procedural criminal law

- Victim support and offender management

- Crime disruption and harm reduction

- Prevention and awareness-raising

- Co-ordination, monitoring and evaluation

- Relevant training and resources.

A resulting gap analysis report will provide a baseline of child sexual exploitation and abuse in Georgia, including in the online dimension, and the recommendations for priority actions to be taken by national authorities and professionals in this area. It aims to contribute toward planned reforms of child protection and cybercrime underway in Georgia, in particular those supporting the implementation of the recently adopted Child Rights Code.

The visit is carried out under the project on Responding to child sexual exploitation and abuse in Georgia, phase I. It will also  contribute to a regional Council of Europe project to End online child sexual exploitation and abuse@Europe (EndOCSEA@Europe). The resulting report will be finalised by the experts at the end of 2019; results are expected to be shared with all participating stakeholders in early 2020.