National Research on Domestic Violence Against Women in

way everywhere.” (Service provider, Tbilisi)Indeed, it is not surprising that the population lacksinformation and awareness when those considered expertsin issues of gender-based domestic violence andservice providers for the victims hold such ideas themselves!And if in the Georgian reality “psychological violencehas traditionally not been perceived as violence”,is that a valid argument for not deeming it violencenowadays? If so, we should revive the tradition of notallowing women to speak unless they are spoken toThus, it is evident that Georgian society does lack anunderstanding of what gender-based domestic violencemeans and serious educational work should be undertakenat all levels of society, starting from the victims,who may have been victimized for decades without realizingthey have been victims, and ending with expertsand service providers, who aim to help victims and tochange the perceptions of the society without realizingthey hold the same perceptions themselves.How and Why Is ViolenceExperiencedThe victims of violence, as well as policemen, experts,and service providers are unanimous in their ideasabout the agents of violence. They state that domesticviolence is mainly perpetrated by a husband and hisfamily (mostly mother-in-law), especially when the husbandis drunk.“ I have been married for six years now and my husbandhas been beating me for six years... My husband is dependenton women - his mother and sisters. He doesn’thave his own opinion. They have always insulted me andI couldn’t defend myself... Unemployment has its ownimpact. In order to work, my husband has to ask permissionfrom his mother. I tried to work and he was askinghis mother whether I was allowed to work. He was askingher about everything. I wouldn’t have had any problemif he hadn’t beaten me; in such a case we would stillbe living together.” (Victim living in a shelter)“I was experiencing physical and economic violence frommy husband and psychological violence from his family,especially his mother.” (Victim living in a shelter)“As soon as my husband got drunk he started to curseand beat me. I went to my mother-in-law for help butshe always accused me, saying I was guilty for him havingsuch an attitude towards me, and she made everythingeven worse.” (Victim not living in a shelter)“I experienced all types of violence from my husband atdifferent stages of our life together. It happened quitefrequently. As soon as he got disturbed, he immediatelybecame aggressive to me. And it has been lasting for along time - I have been married for 20 years now... In mycase, the main cause was my husband’s family members’behaviour - they provoked my husband. My father-inlawwas less responsible for this, mainly mother-in-lawinfluenced my husband.” (Victim not living in a shelter)Taking into consideration the mother’s dominant role ina Georgian family and her influence even on her adultchildren’s private lives (especially the son’s life, as heis the one who, as a rule, brings his wife to his family’shouse), backed up by the abovementioned “cult ofmother” in Georgian culture, these women’s words arenot surprising. Moreover, even a service provider who issupposed to protect such women from their husbands’and their immediate family members’ violence statesthe following:“... Of course, not getting involved at all is not an option- I have sons and know that if my daughter-in-lawbehaves inappropriately, I won’t be able to remain silentor tolerant though it’s a matter of form.” (Service provider,Tbilisi)Policemen charged with dealing with cases of domesticviolence on a daily basis also confirm that the mostfrequent cases of violence are perpetrated by husbandswhen they are drunk.“Most of the cases of violence I have encountered workingat the police station over the past year happen whena husband is drunk, when a wife reports that he drinksand becomes aggressive to her. When we ask her howhe behaves while sober, she usually replies that he is likean angel with wings.” (Policeman, Tbilisi)The second most widespread form of violence is parents’violence against their children (based on the victims’reports, there were two cases in which a fatherwas beating his teenage daughter). Although at firstglance it seems that parents’ physical violence againsttheir children is less common than husbands’ physicalviolence against their wives, different passages fromthe in-depth interviews and the focus group transcriptsNATIONAL RESEARCH ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN GEORGIA67