On October 30, 2023 Ekaterine Lortkipanidze, Counsellor of the Permanent Mission of Georgia to the United Nations, delivered a statement within the Third Committee of the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly, under agenda item “Elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”.

On October 30, 2023 Ekaterine Lortkipanidze, Counsellor of the Permanent Mission of Georgia to the United Nations, delivered a statement within the Third Committee of the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly, under agenda item “Elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”.

Georgian Delegate stressed that promotion of equality and ensuring realization of human rights without discrimination represent one out of the four core priorities of the second National Human Rights Strategy of Georgia (2022-2030). Since 2020 a comprehensive joint data system of statistics on crimes committed on the grounds of intolerance has been put in place in Georgia, which gives the possibility to relevant agencies, Ministry of Internal Affairs, the General Prosecutor's Office, the Supreme Court, and the National Statistics Office of Georgia to share information with each other. Awareness raising campaigns with the purpose of strengthening tolerance and combating discrimination, are being conducted across the country, both at central and local levels.

Georgian delegate underlined that due to the occupation of Georgian regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali by the Russian Federation, the human rights situation on the ground remains alarming. The conflict-affected people in both Russia-occupied regions of Georgia suffer from ever-increasing violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Among other grave violations, discrimination on ethnic grounds and prohibition of education in native Georgian language, continue to have extremely negative humanitarian impact on the daily lives of people residing in both occupied regions.