The Legal Issues Committee reviewed and supported the draft law on Family Values and the Protection of Minors and the accompanying bill during its first reading.

According to the parliament’s press office, the draft law addresses issues related to marriage, adoption and foster care of minors, medical procedures for changing a person’s sex to one different from their biological sex, indication of sex in state-issued documents, education, dissemination of information, public assembly and manifestation, and disregard of biological sex in the context of labor relations.

Additionally, May 17 is officially established as the Day of Family Purity and Respect for Parents at the legislative level.

“The significance of this initiative was evident on May 17, when a large part of our society—over 600,000 people in Tbilisi and the regions—united around these values and principles, which we are now giving a legislative framework”, – Rati Ionatamishvili, one of the initiators of the draft law and Chairman of the Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee, stated.

Ionatamishvili noted that the committee hearings on the legislative package are a parallel process to the discussion of the related constitutional amendments. As he mentioned, the legislative package defines the enforcement mechanisms and necessary instruments for the implementation of the law.

According to the draft law, “marriage is defined as the voluntary union of two individuals of different biological sexes to create a family, which meets the requirements set by Georgian legislation. Registration of any other type of union as marriage or its recognition as marriage by legal act is prohibited.”