UN Women, ICJ & OHCHR Access to Justice for women in Asia
Contribution ID : SE-0-SE-6-51000198This website displays open data about Swedish aid, which shows when, to whom and for what purpose Swedish aid is paid out, as well as what results it has produced. This page contains information about one of the contributions financed with Swedish aid.
regional support to civil society organisations with the purpose to support rule of law, a cooperation between ICJ, OHCHR and UNWOMEN
More about the contribution
regional support to civil society organisations with the purpose to support rule of law, a cooperation between ICJ, OHCHR and UNWOMEN
All activities related to the contribution are shown here. Click on an individual activity to see in-depth information.
Total aid 0 USD distributed on 0 activities
A list of all paid transactions for a specific contribution is presented here. Each payment can be traced to a specific activity. Negative amounts indicate that there has been a refund.
0 transactions
No transactions available for this contribution
0 contribution documents
Link to download |
---|
No contribution documents available for this contribution
Result
According to the first global synapses of the justice gap presented by the Task Force on Justice in its 2019 report, the majority of the worlds population does not have access to meaningful justice. Over five billion people fall into at least one of three groups of people denied justice: people living in the most extreme conditions of injustice, people who are unable to have their justice problems resolved, and people who cannot enjoy the rights and protections law provides. Women's unmet justice needs reflect experiences of disadvantage, exclusion, discrimination and violence. The social norms and stereotypes that discriminate against women can materialize as legal discrimination or can obstruct the implementation of laws to protect women's rights. Examples of results: - The programme addressed these challenges by applying a people-centred approach to legislative change and supporting formal justice mechanisms to enhance women's rights protections. Efforts to close the justice gap include supporting the diversification of justice mechanisms, specifically by working with community-based justice mechanisms and whole communities to provide protection and prevent legal and social problems. The programme convened a platform for over 1,800 women to engage with formal and community-based justice mechanisms. The communities took part in justice dialogues to prevent discrimination and provide protection for women justice seekers. - The programme used international obligations and frameworks to advance gender equality within justice systems. For example the CEDAW reporting process in Indonesia led to the passage of the Anti-Sexual Violence Act in mid-2022. The engagement process was OHCHR and UN Women working jointly with Komnas Perempuan (End Violence against Women and Girls or EVAW Commission) to support a monitoring system for the implementation of the Anti-Sexual Violence Bill. ICJ had urged the government to prevent sexual violence and provide redress to the survivor of sexual violence. - The Bangkok General Guidance for Judges on Applying a Gender Perspective (BGG) helps to promote fairness in the adjudication of cases, which will in effect allow equal opportunity, equal access and equal outcomes in the dispensation of justice to those whose rights are at risk because of their gender. ICJ hosted a South Asia Judicial Dialogue with thirty judges from across the region. The result was the BGG has been incorporated into the Nepal Supreme Courts Strategy document. Maldives judiciary has asked ICJ for assistance to incorporate the BGG within their court system. 235 (157 women) lawyers were trained in the focus countries on women's access to justice and BGG. - In Fiji, 35 lawyers (21 women and 14 men) attended a hybrid workshop conducted in partnership with the Fiji Women Lawyers Association. The primary objective was to assist lawyers to identify gender discriminatory practices and improve access to justice for women. Some lawyers later offered pro bono services to the Fiji Women's Crisis Centre, which works with victims of domestic and other forms of gender-based violence. - In Nepal, the programme led to increased public satisfaction with community-based justice providers. While a baseline survey of 10 programme communities in October 2019 showed a satisfaction rate of 14 per cent, this increased to 52 per cent by December 2021. Platforms for dialogue were developed for regular exchanges among local judicial committees, mediators, informal justice actors, district courts, mayors, police, lawyers and women human rights defenders (WHRDs). In total, the programme supported dialogues among 604 justice and service providers, including 60 committee members (34 women, 26 men), 234 mediators (125 women, 109 men), 202 informal justice providers (84 women, 118 men) and 108 (55 women, 53 men) other service actors such as shelter providers, women CSOs, etc. Regular exchanges between service providers and communities strengthened trust and the social contract towards sustaining peaceful communities. Two local governments acknowledged the importance of gender responsive justice and allocated USD 20,000 of their own resources to strengthen the judicial committees in their districts. - In Indonesia, the programme established a platform for regular exchanges among pokjas, counselling services, CSOs and government legal aid services. This led to a service referral agreement among the parties. Nine training sessions for 79 pokja members (47 women and 32 men) on international human rights and the legislative framework for women's rights, including legal services, helped develop guidelines covering basic paralegal knowledge, referral procedures and formal justice structures, and advocacy strategies for womens rights. - In the Philippines, the Philippines Commission on Women committed to developing a policy paper on women in detention. The Philippines Representative to the ASEAN Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Women and Children accepted membership to the Technical Working Group on Women in Conflict with the Law and is offering to leverage her regional advocacy to gain national government support for the policy agenda on women in conflict with the law. - The programme continues to function as the secretariat and source of capacity-building for the Pacific Human Rights Defenders Network, which has grown into a coalition of 105 human rights defenders from different Pacific Islands countries and territories. They exchanged good practices and challenges in promoting and protecting women's human rights and elaborated recommendations for a Pacific strategy to protect human rights defenders. - It was found that the project has made progress on working with a number of allies to strengthen WA2J. OHCHR has been working with UNEP on the protection and promotion of environment and HRDs. UN Women collaborated with the regional UNODC Asia Pacific as leading UN sister agency working on law enforcement and women in conflict with the law. At the country level, UN Women works with UNDP, specifically in Nepal, Indonesia and Timor- Leste. At the regional level, UN Women and UNDP jointly implement a Behavioural Insights and Gender Justice pilot initiative. - A joint UN working group Access to Justice for women and girls with disabilities was established between UN Women, UNFPA and UNICEF. With UNFPA there are also informal exchanges and support SRHR and justice for women with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities.
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.
Swedish aid in numbers and reports
Do you want to read more about the results of Swedish aid?
Reports from the Expert Group for Aid Studies and Sida's strategy and corruption reports Sida's annual report (Swedish only)