U.S. Embassy in Georgia

Today, Ambassador Degnan and INL Assistant Secretary Robinson were joined by Minister of Justice Rati Bregadze, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Aleksandre Darakhvelidze, and IOM Chief of Mission Sanja Celebic-Lukovac in the official opening ceremony of the 10th Annual Women in Policing conference. Every year, since 2012, the U.S. Embassy INL office, with IOM support, organizes this conference that brings together female law enforcement from Europe and Asia to share experiences and learn new skills.

1. This year the conference brought together over 220 female police officers from 20 countries in Europe and Asia, the highest number of participating countries in its 10-year history. The Conference provides a unique opportunity for participants to not only discuss leadership challenges unique to female law enforcement and how to increase the participation of women at all levels of law enforcement, but also to learn about substantive justice sector issues. This year’s sessions covered topics such as trafficking in persons, counter-drug investigations, gender-based violence, child abuse, anti-corruption, digital evidence, cybercrimes, corrections, and probation programming.