“There was another fight in our house. As usual, it was about nothing. He was drunk. At least he could restrain himself when he was sober, but once he was drunk, he couldn’t hide his aggression anymore. He cursed at all of us. I tried to keep myself calm and not get involved and walked out, but when he started beating my mom, I turned back, I had to do something. He threw a chair at me and hit me hard. He thought he could stop me that way, but I always protected my mom, so how could I stop?! When he saw me take a hard stand, he went to another room, brought out a gun, loaded it and took me in target. “I will kill you, you little bastard,” – he screamed. Everyone ran out of the room, my mother, my neighbors, my brother. Only my sister and I remained there alone with the gun. I heard the trigger sound and closed my eyes. I had no doubt that he would shoot me. I won’t run, shoot me, I said. It was at this time that my mother screamed from the outside, that the police has arrived. She lied. We hadn’t actually called the police. My father got afraid and ran away”. 

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I grew up with my grandmother and grandfather since childhood. They disliked my father, and since my mother couldn’t imagine life without her husband and wasn’t leaving him. They took me with them to raise me. When my grandmother died, they moved to our house and exactly that’s when everything has started – daily violence on mom, on children, on grandpa. I had no Idea how I could protect myself. After the threats to kill me, my mother, my siblings and I ran out to Kutaisi and started living with our relatives. My mother got a job. I started looking for a job too. Later we rented another apartment but within a month my mother decided she wanted to return to her husband. She said my brother – Giorgi, needed a father. I didn’t go back there and my protest became a reason why my own father threatened me to kill me. I lived in constant fear. My father wasn’t willing to accept that I turned against him and would not obey him. During this period, my mother came to e several times beaten and she went back every time. I asked not to, many times. I promised her that we would start a new life, a better life. But there are women who can’t imagine their life without men. They can’t stand up to violence, they don’t have the financial independence to live alone, neither have they their own homes. It’s not easy to resist all this and and all this people, and also the expression – ”what will the people say”. But for your personal freedom and a chance to live a quiet life, you can find the strength in yourself and win the battle. 

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Episode#2

”I got sick and was lying in the bed with a fever. My mother was out, visiting our neighbor. My father came home drunk again and entered my room. I felt in sleep that he was kissing my lips and it was not a father’s kiss! I maneured him away with my hands and threw him out. He cursed at me. My mother heard the fight and came in, but I didn’t tell her anything. I didn’t tell it  anyone, buried it inside myself. But I always remembered it and feared it could happen again”. 

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My sister escaped abuse by getting married at the age of 15. Giorgi is 10 years old and he is studying well, but I care a lot about his mental state. He is under a social worker’s observation but you know how well the legal system works, right?! if they don’t see the exact fact of violence, or they can’t detect anything physically, nobody can confirm if someone was trying to beat or even kill you. If you don’t get really killed, you can’t claim that someone tried to. Once I read Giorgi’s letter to Santa. Every child believes that Santa Claus can do anything and you can ask him whatever you want. Do you know what Gio asked for? papers and pencils. My heart sank. I sent him some drawing materials. My family responded that they didn’t need anything from me. Sometimes I think, maybe it would be better for my brother to move to a children’s shelter. I know, he might get mad at me now, but when he’ll grow up, he will understand that it was better for his future. 

Our main problem is that we don’t have the information about how we can actually protect ourselves, what our rights are and how we can demand justice. For years I couldn’t go out in the streets alone, in every car I saw I imagined my father with a knife. Once our neighbors told him, (the same neighbors who actually saw how he was trying to kill me with a gun) that I got in a car with some random guys. Once my friends brought me from the village to Kutaisi. My father came in Kutaisi to kill me with a knife. I was hiding. I was lucky that I found the office of ”Identoba” in the city. Everything that we actually should have learned in school, our rights, how to protect ourselves and how to handle violence, I learned all of it here. I also underwent sychological therapy here. It took a lot of time before I started talking about it loudly. And not only talking but fighting. He came here to the office once. That was the first time I formally filed a suit about him. I also told the police about the gun incident, but the case was closed due to lack of evidence. All of our neighbor witnesses choose Ruslan’s side. My mother testified against me. As I told you, until you get really killed, you can’t prove that they were trying to. 

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Episode #3

,, My mother called me, she got sick and wanted me to visit her. I went to the village with a friend of mine. In fact, they had a plan not to let me out of there. Somehow my father thought, that I went back to apologize and to stay there. When he found out that I was leaving, he became aggressive again and remembered how I complained about him in the police. He cursed me again. He tried to hit me and hit my friend by accident. I left. He caught up to us on the road by car. He had a gun and screamed he would kill us and throw us into a nearby channel. We ran and asked women in the neighboring building to help us and let us hide. They refused and actually when they saw it was Ruslan, they started fighting with me, accusing me of placing my father in that kind of situation. I called the police. My mother was so afraid when she saw a gun that she told us the exact address to tell to 112. We got help from a neighbor from the upper floor. When the police came, my father has hidden already, but everybody heard the shooting sound. Even though everybody saw the fact of violence, my neighbors still chose my father’s side and told the police, that I put him in that kind of situation, because of how I looked. They couldn’t understand how I could have taken action against my father and called the police. The policeman told me the same, that I didn’t have to complain, they could solve it all by themselves without making any more trouble, as they have done elsewhere. At this time I was already informed about my rights and knew how I had to talk to the police. I threatened them that if they didn’t take care of the case I would inform the General Inspection. After that, they did all the procedures as required. My father got arrested. They couldn’t find the gun. My mother still denied it; there was no gun, she said…” 

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My father has been released on bail and the court case is still ongoing. The case is based on domestic violence with homophobic motivation which is considered an aggravating circumstance. I lost all of my relatives; nobody chose my side since I complained to my father. Some of them told me, that he beat me because he wanted me to be good. I don’t really care about losing them. I only have a relationship with my uncle, who never once betrayed me in action. 

I’m trying to recreate my life. The only good thing I have learned from my father is the auto mechanics. I started studying at the vocational school for building and car electricity. I’m the only girl majoring in it. In the end, I want to become a professional car maker. Otherwise, I won’t be able to establish myself in this field full of professional men. Eventually, I have to work twice as much, but I’m not afraid. 

I’ve been fighting against violence since I was 18. Maybe some people think that there isn’t a violence problem anymore, but I know what’s happening in the regions, in villages, where girls voices aren’t heard and these girls don’t know how to protect themselves or are ashamed to talk about it. I speak about it loudly, because if somebody reads it, I want to to let them know that violence is not a final verdict. I can’t be a lawyer in court, but at least I can help them by providing information about where to go for help and how to save themselves from terror. 

Author: Maiko Chitaia

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Since I had already been married before and had a child, my current husband was always looking at me with suspicion. Somehow He was always trying to prove that I was bad. And I wanted to show him that I was good, so that I was always trying to prove myself. Then he started to physically abuse me for absurd reasons. For example, he was telling me to say “I love you” to him, and as I was telling “I love you”, he was replying “No, you are lying, tell me the truth,” and then he would hit me, bash my head against the wall, or beat me with a shoe. This is the first time I am saying that – I thought it was a punishment I deserved, because I thought I was bad, so I was trying to be good so he wouldn’t hit me anymore. I thought I’d stand this while he wasn’t sure in me, until he realized that I was good and all this would have been solved and he would not hit me anymore.

Once he started looking in the trash and found some man’s clothes thrown out by a neighbor. Of course, he suspected me, rushed into the house and hit me immediately. I took a fork and cut my veins so that he wouldn’t beat me anymore. When he saw the blood, he left. At that moment, I was happy that he left me alone. I preferred cutting myself.

Our landline was in the kitchen and when he was leaving home, he was calling me immediately. I didn’t have the right to have a cell phone. When he called, I had to answer after one or two rings max, otherwise another beating was guaranteed. I was sitting in the kitchen for whole six years, to answer his calls as soon as possible. I didn’t go out of the yard for months. I was not allowed to talk to people; my friends couldn’t visit me either. If I was taking my child to a doctor for vaccination, I had to come back exactly on time, otherwise he’d beat me. Being in prison would be preferable to my life.

All this lasted for 6 years. He was fighting for very absurd reasons, for example, ‘’why was there a fly inside the house?’’ – He was hitting me because of that. ‘’the telephone cable was broken?’’ – “Why is it spoiled? You spoiled it! – That’s how my 24 hours looked like. Additionally I was starving, he didn’t allow me to eat, because I didn’t deserve it. I was greatly stressed all the time. Once an elderly woman told me how happy she would be if her grandson would marry a girl like me. I thought she was a fool, didn’t knowing how undeserving I was. I even told her that I was not good at all. My relatives were telling me to leave him, but I thought that I have to become a better person and then he wouldn’t beat me anymore.

I was home, beaten and hungry. While walking, I always looked down.  After so much violence and with time, love was gone, desires to have any kind of relationship with him went as well. One day, when he went out, I closed the door and didn’t let him in. Thank god, the apartment was mine. When he realized I wasn’t letting him in, he was surprised and started threatening me. For the first time in my life, I gained strength and called the police. I was nervous about that too. However, when they came, they drew me aside and they let him go. He continued threatening me over the phone. He scratched my new car with a knife, but he could have freely killed me with that knife, too. Once he somehow managed to get to me and tried to dump me in a bunker. I called the police one more time, but this time he was already gone and they couldn’t do anything.  From that day I was calling the police every day. The cops couldn’t do much, but when the criminal police came, they explained that it was a family conflict and we would be fighting one day and on reconcile on another, and so on. But I didn’t give up, I was going to the police station twice a day and they realized that I was serious. After that they placed him under suspicion. The district inspector intervened in the case and he was terrified that they take this case to the court. It was effective and he left me alone.  If I didn’t fight so much and didn’t go to the police every day, (they often had laughs at my expense) nothing else would have stopped him. For 4 months I went to the police station every day.

When I was divorcing from the abusive husband, many people were happy, but some people, mostly from older generations, were telling me, why are you divorcing, what’s the problem if he is hitting you? If you divorce him, you will miss that beating part too, you will go the wrong way. I have been told such stupid things. I often think that, if I had stayed with him, I’d rather be in prison or dead, either I would kill him or he’d kill me.

I needed 4-5 years to get out of it. When I finally got over him and my stress, I wanted to lead an active life. Near my apartment there was a gym and I always wanted to go there. My child started first and later I joined too. Physical exercise helped me to overcome my psychological pressure.

I became self-confident, which I never was before. I changed the way I walked, before I always looked down when walking, but now I started walking with my head held high. My forced victim’s role disappeared. I realized that I have found something for myself and decided to study this thoroughly to become a fitness instructor. Today I just don’t believe that someone was hitting me and that I have gone through so many things.

Author: Nino Gamisonia
Photo: Nino Baidauri

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„Why put up with violence?“
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Perhaps the most important is that abusers never reveal their violent nature at the beginning of the relationship. I’d known my future husband more than a year before marrying him though he didn’t use to reveal his abusive behaviour back then. When I became his wife he turned out to be having completely different views and nature, which he gradually used to disclose. Once I even told him so, I said he disguised himself perfectly.

We’ve been together for one year and ten months. We didn’t have a civil marriage but only wedded in a church. In the presence of his friends he often would say: “Did you think I was going to share my riches with her?” I thought of it as a joke and used to laugh it off.

Due to my profession (the author studies law), I had some information about abusers, yet when it concerns you, it’s not easy to associate yourself with this all and realize that the victim is you. In the morning before leaving home, he would say I was ugly and he had a thing about me. He often used to make fun of my appearance, my mental abilities and financial state – not only mine but all of my friends’ and relatives’. He was threatening to make me nobody, that I would suffer without him, that he would take my child from me and lock me in his father’s mental hospital. It made me so oppressed and discouraged I nearly had no personality, problems with memory started and even lost weight – I lost 10 kg while married.

Worried about the child, who used to watch his father abusing and shouting at her/his mother, I wanted him/her to have a better future. What thoughts and mentality would he/she adopt being brought up in those conditions?

Control and isolation
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He gradually started forbidding me to go out and controlled my guests as well. One of my friends he used to call “goer” as she was married for the second time and had a most beautiful child. About another friend, he said she wasn’t welcome to visit us anymore and I was not allowed to speak to her. I suppose, having seen how that girl supported me, he didn’t want me to have well-wishers around. Later on, he took advantage of the child – he made me let our babysitter go and, having the child to look after, asked me to quit the job. He even refused me to take the child to a nursery. At first, he was saying he wasn’t forbidding but “giving an advice”. His advice eventually grew into restrictions.

In the beginning, I was trying to take into account his point of view on some of the restrictions. I would even think it was I who was guilty as he’s been very good at manipulation and making me feel ashamed. But, eventually, I began to disapprove and was asking questions like why couldn’t I do a thing on my free will when doing no harm?! Why shouldn’t I work if I want to?!

Severe forms of violence
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I would leave a light on in the hall to better watch the child if he/she wakes up at night. He didn’t even let me explain why I was doing this, jumped out of bed, pushed me to the floor, kicked me, turned the light off and went to bed right away.
It was during the second pregnancy when I first asked someone else, that is his mother and later my parents, to intervene between us. His father called in the morning. I don’t know what he told him, but since morning being very irritated, he argued over trivialities like why I forgot to take baby carriage cover at Lisi lake or why my hair wasn’t getting dry for us to leave home soon and so forth. For him not to put the blame for my annoyance on pregnancy, I asked him to go out with friends and relax, or drink some beer and then we could talk calmly. He shouted at me more furiously “Who the hell are you to tell Giga Bakuradze what to do?”. He slammed the brakes so that I banged my head against the windshield. We went home shouting and arguing. I grasped the child and asked him to go. As I was standing in front of him pregnant with the child in my hands, he slapped my face. In response to my panic attack, he played a suicide scene out – went out of the bathroom with a half-empty bottle of solvent saying he drank it and he was going to die. I rang his mother, but before her coming over he ran away from home. That night I went to my mother-in-law. I wasn’t going back home, but then my father-in-law called and started swearing at his wife. I took pity on her and came back home to my husband.

It coincided that a few days later I came down with sinusitis. My sister came along to look after the child as I felt horrible. having happily returned after shopping, my husband started another quarrel over the shirt, which I didn’t iron for him. He threw aside blanket from me ill and pregnant lying in bed and shouted I must have left his house immediately. He even called my mother and threatened to throw all my belongings out of the window if my parents wouldn’t take me home. My middle sister witnessed this. My parents arrived that same night and took me to Kutaisi. It appeared I had sinusitis, trigeminal and occipital neuralgia at the same time. Extreme stresses added to all these, and fetus stopped developing – I miscarried.

Abuser’s Apologies and regrets
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After I received treatment and recovered, my husband arrived in Kutaisi for me. He came with apologies and begged to let him in, saying he made a mistake being under the influence. He blamed his parents’ personal problems for what happened. As they told me, he even cried having gone on his knees and begged for forgiveness. Having believed he was having a tough time, I felt sorry for him and we reconciled. We’ve had a relatively peaceful life for nearly a month. Then he started acting aggressively again. But I wasn’t taking it as easy as before and confronted him openly. I was particularly worried by the fact that he would easily fall under his father’s influence who believes women must keep their mouth shut and mustn’t leave the kitchen. My husband and I used to live in a separate apartment. My babysitter and neighbours would see how I took care of him and our child. I would get up at 7 in the morning and do all the housework having returned in the evening, but he was never satisfied. I even made cakes and juice for him not to eat fast food at work. Later I realized it was only the reason for abuse.

Legal way of struggling
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It was this summer I first reported to the police, after having a miscarriage as the relationship with my husband became extremely strained. Having discovered some lies too, I finally decided to leave him. I packed my things and left him a letter explaining why I was leaving. He arrived as I was leaving the house. After reading the letter, he slapped my face and tried to strangle me. He took my phone away too. I somehow escaped, having locked myself up in my daughter’s/son’s bedroom, managed to call the police from his phone. The same night I went to my mother-in-laws’ to take the child. She didn’t open the door and turned off her phone. I didn’t know where my daughter/son was and called the police again. They’ve been lying all night that the child was with my husband.
I’ve tried to solve the custody issue between us without going to court, but he took the child from nursery and didn’t let me see him/her for more than a month. There are four police reports of how he was using the child to his advantage. As I went to court, he threatened to take away the child and never let me see her/him again. I didn’t take the lawsuit back anyway though we shared custody. It was then my daughter/son stayed with me for the first time after four months. Although he didn’t quit destroying my reputation spreading rumours about my sex life claiming that it was me who abandoned the child.

On January 3 in 2018 he burst into my parents’ house and beat my father and me in front of two underaged children (my daughter/son and my sister). He was repeatedly hitting my father, who was lying unconscious, in the face. I immediately called the police, however, he was released by the court on bail of 3000 GEL. After this incident, I had no choice rather than making our conflict public. Being the head of Khoni mental hospital, my ex-father-in-law would always boast that he was a very influential person, saying he often used to take his position to his advantage.

Finally, after lodging the appeal, the appeal court has sentenced him to imprisonment and now he’s still in prison. So far, I’m not sure what final sentence the court will give him as the legal proceedings are still going on. A maximum possible sentence is three years, which I think is not quite enough. For me, it’s important him to realize and feel remorse for his guilt, which he hasn’t even admitted yet.
In general, I would say that police has really supported me. Although many women from regions, also victims of violence, who contacted me, share their rather unpleasant experience with the police. So, it seems media has bigger and more positive influence on public opinion than state institutions and police. In my case, it was publicity in media that prompted ministry of internal affairs to take swift actions. The fact that Minister of Justice and ombudsman also responded to my story makes me feel safer.

Apart from that, thanks to my profession, I knew whom I should have been appealing to. One of them was the lecturer of Ilia State university Tamar Gurchiani. Tamar informed the dean and security, so everyone was ready to guard my safety at the university to avoid the tragedy similar to one happened before when one of the lecturers was shot by his husband. Tamar has also contacted Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association and now they are defending me in court. I was really amazed to learn that there are so many groups, organisations and movements defending women’s rights. It makes me very happy and much stronger.

My ex-husband and his family could not get used to the thought of being unable to change and enslave me. They knew I was not going to became a housewife by no means. But there were times when, thanks to my husband, I was about to quit dreams about finding a job within my profession. Though now, having gone through all these experience I would probably prefer to work in human rights law.

Author: Ida Bakhturidze
Photo credit: Sopo Aptsiauri
Translation: Nino Suramelashvili

Just as media exposure can change institutional responses and public attitudes, innovations like bitcoin casino games reflect how technology shapes transparency, verification, and trust across different sectors.

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Like for many other women, for me the stage of life, which is called “getting married”, started in a standard way. I was not going to marry because I was just 17 years old. But I was abducted so I had to make a choice. The first thought that came to me mind was the stereotypical “what will people say if I go back to my parents?” So even though I had support from my parents and they offered me to take back home, I decided to stay.

My husband was 7 years older than me. He said he wanted to marry a younger girl to bring her up “in his own way”. Then you have to adapt to the family… You have to put your interests aside. Initially I could not realize things. I did not understand that they tried to change me.

At that time, I studied at a musical school in Gori and I had to go there from the village. This was a problem because sometimes he did not let me go there. He never explained the reason, he was just in that mood. Sometimes he allowed me to go but at other times not.
There was a job available in the district. He allowed me to start working. But sometimes he would tell me: “You will not go to work today”. There was no reason, no explanation for that. “Why?” He never answered this question. “Because I said so!” and that’s it.

Another problem was that I had to think exactly like my husband did. I did not even wish to express my own self in any way. I think if he had met a more mature, stronger girl, with firm character he would not have acted like that. But we had been taught that we were supposed to be obedient, to obey our husbands and act as our families wished us to. I was under the influence of the upbringing and behaved respectively.

He did not think slapping in the face was violence. If he slapped you in the face „so what, not a big deal! “. I depended on him financially as well, therefore everything – starting from choosing my clothes ending with relationships with my friends – depended on the mood of my husband.

I lived for 12 years in this condition consciously. You know what I mean by ‘consciously’? I believed that I was supposed to maintain the family and tolerate the pain because I was a woman!

I confronted myself first when I realized that my children had grown up. I realized that my children would also have to live in the abusive environment. People around lived in the same way. In most cases, women were in the same condition. When I started thinking about children, I understood that it was time to change our life, but I thought that we had to do that together.

We moved to a new place and a different environment. Our relationships should also have changed but it got worse. I became more mature and realized that we could not continue this way. However I was not thinking about running away or leaving. Like many women, I always thought that he would change.

Then when I got an opportunity to study at the Police Academy and work, I faced another problem. He had to recognize that I was capable of doing something independently. When I told him that I was going to study at the Police Academy, he told me: “Ok, go and study”, but he said that ironically. My father also opposed my decision. I remember he came and asked my husband: „Why do you let her go? “. My husband sneered: “Let her go and see what she can do, she will crawl back on her knees“.

My father did not say anything. He told me before he left: „Go and study my girl, show him what you can do! I will support you in everything“. This was the biggest incentive that encouraged me to take this step. When I started studying at the academy I wanted to prove to myself in the first place that I was capable of doing something.

When I started reading laws I realized the conditions we have to live in. Women are not allowed to study, to work, they are not allowed to use the Internet. The less informed she is the fewer are her demands. This is how men with inferiority complex tend to act. During one of the conflicts, when I argued back, he hit me without any reason. He told me that he had hit me because he was not as good at arguing as I was.

Once he abused verbally someone in the street without any reason, I asked him why he was swearing and whether he would like if someone did the same to me, he turned to me and slapped me in the face. His behavior was absolutely illogical. He also used to say things like: “If a woman tells you to go right you have to go left,” or “Women always tend to say stupid things”. When things like that happen every day they become rather suppressive.

Before I started working in the police, the situation had already matured for our divorce. I tried to mend our relationships later for several times but after I became confident in myself, reevaluated many things and learned exactly what I wanted and how I wanted to live – I did not want to return there anymore.

I was probably lucky because our divorce was not complicated, i.e. unlike other abusive husbands, he did not attempt to stalk me, threaten by killing or mutilating, or use the kids as weapons in divorce. I did not need to apply to the police or relatives for help. I told my parents that it was me who had made the decision and they did not need to interfere.

To me this was not breaking up the family, rather, this was an escape.

Currently I am a police officer. I have fought against all forms of violence against women for ten years by performing my job duties, using private contacts, holding training courses and awareness meetings, or just by giving friendly advice in the social media. I want all women to be reasonable and to be able to break out of the terrible feeling of being a victim.”

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