The Special Investigation Service organized a conference on combating pedophilia and children’s safety.

The head of the service, Koka Katsitadze, introduced in detail the initiative of establishing an electronic registry and state monitoring mechanism of offenders of pedophilia and sextortion to the Public Defender, representatives of the General Prosecutor’s Office, ministries, academia and judges.

The representatives of the Special Investigation Service delivered a speech about the specifics of the registry and monitoring mechanism and shared with the audience the best international practices. The meeting continued with discussions on the timeliness and necessity of implementing the initiative.

According to the initiative of the Special Investigation Service, convicts who have been found guilty of sextortion and other sexual offences against minors and juveniles, who have obtained and disseminated private life footage for mercenaries, and who have committed multiple instances of the same types of crimes or are committing these offences repeatedly will be monitored and have their rights restricted.

Various restrictive measures, such as the prohibition of living with a minor, not approaching an educational institution within a radius of 30 meters, taking away the right to transport passengers, carrying out medical and pedagogical activities, working as a social worker, etc., will be applied to the persons convicted of the mentioned crimes.

State monitoring includes the obligation to report the convicted person to the investigative body at certain intervals, to check the convicted person on his residential and work addresses, to request information from him, and to carry out other preventive measures.

The Public Defender, representatives of public institutions and the Academia positively evaluated the initiative of the Service and expressed their readiness to implement specific measures for future cooperation.

The Special Investigation Service plans to actively cooperate with the Parliament of Georgia to implement the legislative amendments to combat pedophilia and other related crimes.

Public Defender Levan Ioseliani, Deputy Prosecutor General Natia Merebashvili, Deputy Minister of Justice Buba Lomuashvili, Deputy Heads of the Special Investigation Service Giorgi Kvaratskhelia and Natia Songhulashvili, Director of the Agency for State Care and Assistance for the (Statutory) Victims of Human Trafficking, Rusudan Kokhodze, Head of the Office of Resource Officers of Educational Institutions Sofio Abulashvili, Judges of the Tbilisi City Court’s criminal law board, representatives of the academia, criminologists, Deputy Public Defenders and employees of the Special Investigation Service attended the meeting.