Coalition for Equality responds to the case of a femicide (murder of a woman on gender grounds) committed with an extraordinary brutality, on which the judicial process was carried out with significant shortcomings. The Coalition believes that the judicial authorities should fundamentally change the approach to gender crimes to ensure their effective prevention, investigation and punishment.
On January 15, 2017, Givi Guliashvili, living in Telavi in the village of Shalauri, burnt his wife – Olga Shishkina. 70% of her body was burnt and after being 12 days in the resuscitation department, she died on January 27, 2017. On June 12, 2017, Givi Guliashvili was found guilty of intentional infliction of serious health injury with special brutality, causing the death of a person, and he was sentenced to 11 years in prison. The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) was monitoring the court proceedings of this criminal case. There are lots of systemic problems in the process of investigation and punishment of femicide crimes in Georgia, such as the qualification of the crime, the study of discriminatory motivation and study of circumstances prior to the violence:
Based on the above-mentioned case and considering systemic gaps in the investigation and punishment of femicide crimes, we believe that in all cases of femicide crimes justice should be carried out through consideration of the gender perspective and the general context of violence against women. Qualification of a crime shall be adequate to the committed crime, discriminatory motivation of each case shall be investigated and circumstances prior to the violence shall be studied. Investigation and punishment of femicide crimes should have a transformation potential – along with the avoidance of a new offense and punishment of the offender, justice should adequately recognize the suffering of women victims and transform structural inequality, discrimination, subordination, and gender hierarchy, which are the fundamental causes of violence against women and femicide crimes.
[1] offense was sanctioned under Article 111- 117.8 intentional infliction of serious health injury with special brutality, causing the death of a person, domestic violence), which is punishable by imprisonment from 10 to 14 years.