USAID Rule of Law Program and the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) in Georgia organized a webinar for Georgian judges who are members of the Women’s Rights Practice Group.

Patricia Wildermuth, Senior Judicial Advisor at INL, and Rusudan Tabatadze, Rule of Law Program Manager at USAID/Caucasus, opened the event by extending a warm welcome to the meeting participants.

During the webinar, eleven Georgian judges who recently participated in the International Conference of Women Judges (IAWJ) in Morroco and the National Association of Women Judges (NAWJ) in Indianapolis, shared the knowledge they gained from these conferences with each other as well as with their colleagues, and explained how their experience had inspired them to work even more diligently to protect women’s rights.

In one segment of the webinar Judge Tamar Chikhladze of Tbilisi City Court moderated a discussion among the other three judges who had attended one of the conferences shared their views about the importance of having active women judges on the bench and the unique contribution women judges can make to promote gender equality, discourage gender-based violence, and fairly adjudicate family-related disputes.

In another session women judges from the Tbilisi Court of Appeals addressed the double standards they encounter on the bench, the challenge of being recognized as competent and knowledgeable as their male colleagues, and survival techniques, emphasizing the importance of sharing their concerns among one another and uniting to overcome difficulties together.

All of the judge speakers expressed enthusiasm for what they had seen and heard at the conferences - meeting inspiring speakers, and discovering that women judges face similar challenges worldwide. They strongly encouraged their colleagues to seize future opportunities to participate in NAWJ and IAWJ activities and conferences.