Female pilot accuses Georgian MoD of discrimination

In its lawsuit filed to the Tbilisi City Court, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for Georgia demanded from armed forces female pilot Ekaterina Kvlividze to pay a fine for the premature termination of her contract. In response, the armed forces pilot filed a lawsuit against the Georgian MoD.

Ekaterina Kvlividze claims that she had to terminate her contract due to gender discrimination and leave the armed forces.

The Georgian MoD filed a lawsuit against Ekaterina Kvlividze for breaking the contract and demanded to impose on the former employee a fine of 28,000 laris (10,400 US dollars), the "Georgia Online" reported on March 27.

"I was not included in the training plan. That means I would not be able to fly for the whole year and the commander confirmed that when I spoke to him personally. There has been the opinion that it makes no sense to spend the existing small resources on me, since I am a woman, and that it is better to spend those resources to train other pilots. I had to write a report and leave," the "Georgia Online" quotes Ekaterina Kvlividze as saying.

The rights of Ekaterina Kvlividze, a former pilot of the Georgian armed forces, are being defended by the NGO "Human Rights Centre", through which a retaliatory action was filed to the Tbilisi City Court.

Since 2007, Ekaterina Kvlividze has served more than 11 years as a pilot in the Air Forces of the Georgian MoD. From May 30, 2017, to February 9, 2018, Ekaterina Kvlividze stayed in the United States, where she took transition courses. When the pilot returned she was demoted and was not included into the squadron's combat training plan for 2018, reports the NGO's website.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 28, 2019 at 08:07 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.