NGOs address about the monitoring of children’s homes

The undersigned organizations welcome the initiative of the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Protection on initiation of the monitoring of Residential Childcare Institutions. According to the information released by the Ministry, the monitoring will cover all the institutions including the children’s homes under the Patriarchate. It aims to determine compliance of the institutions with childcare standards established in Georgia.   

Notwithstanding the relevant legislative mechanisms and the state’s obligation to carry out monitoring on all childcare institutions, no monitoring was implemented on the children’s homes under the Patriarchate. Moreover, even the public defender was never given chance to monitor the institutions. 

The last research published by the international organization DRI in the end of 2013 describing the critical situation in children’s homes, emphasizes the problem of lack of transparency in children’s homes under Patriarchate and reports about high risk of violation of children’s rights that might be observed there. The Special Report for 2011 of the Public Defender on the Monitoring of Residential Childcare Institutions describes the instances of violation of rights in children’s homes under Patriarchate.

In view of the mentioned risks, the monitoring should be implemented with maximal transparency under high public trust, which may be possible through participation of civil society representatives in the process. Moreover, representatives from the public defender’s office should necessarily be granted the opportunity to carry out the monitoring through involvement in the process or implementation of the independent monitoring. 

Therefore, we ask you to ensure participation of civil society representatives, as monitoring group members, in the entire process of monitoring the children’s homes, including the planning and implementation, or at least to give us chance to scrutinize the monitoring process conducted by the Ministry with free access to the materials acquired as a result of monitoring and under effective civil control of the monitoring group activities. 

Furthermore, we consider decisive to implement monitoring in residential childcare institutions operating under other religious organizations, so that state and public was informed on the condition of children residing there. 

In view of the above context and the high public interest, the undersigned organizations ask to ensure involvement of the civil society representatives in the monitoring process. As soon as the state expresses the relevant will, we are ready to name competent experts from our side. 

The application is ready for signatures

Signatory organizations:

Partnership for Human Rights (PHR)

Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC)

Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA)

Article 42 of the Constitution 

Every Child 

Global Initiative in Psychiatry 

The First Step Georgia 

Georgian Social Workers’ Association

Public Healthcare Foundation of Georgia 

Partnership for Children

Bres Georgia Foundation

Union “Sapari” 

Women Information Center (WIC)

The Georgian Centre for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (GCRT)

“Women, Child and Society”

“Child with Disabilities and the Society”