completed · Gender· Governance

UN Women, ICJ & OHCHR Access to Justice for women in Asia

The project "Enhancing Access to Justice for Women in Asia and the Pacific. Bridging the gap between formal and informal systems through women's empowerment" is a five-year program with an overarching goal to enhance access to justice for women in both formal and informal justice systems. he project is built on previous experiences The objective of the project is to build on previous global and regional work on Access to Justice for women e.g. The work and experience made by ICJ under the European funded ASEAN program. During the project ICJ consolidated network of lawyers working on Human rights cases in the region and established relationships with courts across the region. ICJ initiated regional judicial dialogues with senior judges in South East Asia. One important outcome was the development and adoption, in 2016, of the Bangkok General Guidance on Applying a Gender Perspective for judges. ICJ has also experiences from intervening in emblematic cases regarding the interpretation of and application of laws that expressively discriminate against women and LGBT people. The project also builds on the experiences made in the regional project UN Women CEDAW South Est Asia regional program 2011-2016 focusing on knowledge generation and exchange, stock taking and priority setting for advancing the implementation of CEDAW in the region. The overall goal was reduced discrimination against women in South-East Asia and enhanced South-East Asia regional processes that facilitate CEDAW implementation. In addition, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for human rights (OHCHR) regional office has the global mandate for human rights and supports justice processes that are consistent with international law and good practices and brings a comparative advantage in supporting judicial reform efforts to protect human rights. OHCHR has expertise and experiences to address issues related to womens access to justice. The UN Women project included important research in several countries with plural legal systems and concluded that there are substantial gaps in women's access to justice in countries with plural legal systems. In addition, negative gender stereotyping and discriminatory attitudes among judges, prosecutors and police were pervasive. Discriminatory legislation is another serious obstacle for Women's access to justice. The project has a geographical focus on 6 countries in Asia and Pacific: Indonesia, Philippines and Timor Leste, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pacific Island Countries. Against this background the A2J project has he project has three specific outputs: 1.) Advocacy is conducted to promote the adoption of domestic laws and court decisions in the target countries consistent with international human rights law and standards, including CEDAW 2.) Gender discriminatory attitudes and stereotyped behaviours towards women are acknowledged and addressed by formal and informal justice providers in the target countries. 3.) Grassroots women's organizations and community-based women's organizations are empowered and well positioned to document, monitor, liase and facilitate interaction with formal and informal justice providers. The programme results are based on the theory of change that if there is: i. A legal enabling environment for women to access gender-responsive justice is created by advocating for laws and court decisions that are consistent with international human rights law and standards, including the CEDAW; ii. Plural justice systems are gender-responsive because gaps between formal and informal settings are bridged through increased understanding and awareness of justice system providers of womens rights; iii. Grassroots womens organizations and community-based womens organizations are empowered and well positioned to document and facilitate interactions between and with formal and informal justice providers, and their resilience is enhanced to build a just and sustainable future; Then, womens access to justice will be enhanced in the Asia Pacific region.