Women’s access to justice must be prioritised in the WANA region

The justice systems of many West Asia and North African countries do not afford equal opportunity andprotection to large segments of the femalepopulation. Such exclusion from the justice system has proven negative implications for economic growth, livelihoods, social equity and stability. So why is the WANA region lagging behind on women’s access to justice initiatives?

In recent years, researchers and programmers have documented a link between gender, legal exclusion, poverty, and injustice. Legal empowerment, especially the legal empowerment of women, has been heralded as an innovative means to respond to development challenges.

Essentially, women’s access to justice is a pivotal piece in the development puzzle.

Yet, while legal empowerment programming has expanded in many countries and regions, in West Asia and North Africa the concept has largely lost momentum.

Women in the WANA region face severe constraints accessing the formal justice

system. Data from a comprehensive survey conducted by the Justice Centre for Legal Aid presents strong evidence that women in Jordan are less likely to refer a legal issue to court, andif they do go to court, they are more likely to be unrepresented.

Women face particular difficulties accessing justiceusingshariah courts. They account for 55.6% ofshariah cases not referred to court and 64.4% ofshariah cases referred to court withoutrepresentation. It’s likely that many unreported cases are resolved using customary dispute resolution systems. Little is knownabout such systems, particularly how women farein negotiations.

Questions need to be asked about why such a large number of women feel that the justice system is not the most effective means of resolving disputes or upholding their rights.

Typically, there are three main reasons why. First,women in the WANA region exhibit low levels of legal literacy.

Second, accessing the courts is expensive, delays arefrequent, corruption and nepotism are rife, womenare discriminated against, and the legal frameworkis not always protective.

Finally, socio-economic,and cultural conditions dissuade women fromupholding their rights. Women who pursue courtactions face stigmatisation and may be ostracisedfrom their families. At the same time, there arelimited employment opportunities for women, norcomprehensive social and economic support programmes. If these women are cut off from the financial support of their families, what economic future will they have?

Overcoming these barriers is crucial if we are to start to shift the trajectory of women’s rights violations in this region. We need a plan of action that lays a solid foundation for women’s legal empowerment in WANA countries. And we need it now.

First, we need to look critically at why legal empowerment has not caught on in the WANA region as it has done in many other parts of the world. We must confront the ‘why do we care’ question.

We need to galvanize awareness around the fact that,typically, women arethe ones who pay the price of a dysfunctional accountability system. Because of their vulnerability, women are more likely to be victims of theft, sexual or economic exploitation and violence.

We know this. There’s evidence. We know, for example, that women victims of domestic violence and discrimination are more likely to suffer deprivation of income or assets because of the lost working days due to injury or prevention of attending work by the perpetrator. What is more, crime and illegality have a greater impact on their lives, and it’s harder for them to obtain redress.

As a result, women fall further into poverty, and so the cycle continues.

Not only is there a moral imperative to fix this situation, there is an economic imperative. Trapped within this cycle, women are more likely to prematurely leave education, less likely to join the workforce and more likely to be heavy users of the health care and social security systems.

Second, we have to confront the reality that some people will not benefit from legal empowerment. What incentives or accountability structures need to be set in place to turn potential spoilers into champions, or at least into passive partners?

Third, we need to carve out a wider and more liberal operating space for civil society. Such organisations are the principalsupport for women seeking to address rightsviolations; they are affordable, accessible and usually culturally acceptable.

Moreover, their work has the potential to be particularly effective in a context where state-levelreform is likely to be slow and complicated.We also need autonomous bodies like ombudsman and public legal aid boards to serve as the gatekeepers of civil society’s independence.

Fourth, we need to prioritise the development of a regional knowledge base capable of supporting the level of innovation required to meet these challenges. This research must be interdisciplinary to reflect the multifaceted nature of the women’s empowerment challenge.

Finally, we need to think seriously about building a culture that supports the legal empowerment of women. The discourse heralds the power of women to assert their rights and hold duty-bearers to account. However, for those who have only been exposed to inequality, institutional failure and lack of opportunity, such an expectation may be unrealistic.

Promoting knowledge of the law and legal tools, and encouraging people to actually make use of them, are separate processes and require different courses of action. Promoting equal opportunity values and norms of non-discrimination is an elusive area and one that is often eschewed — particularly in this part of the world. The civil society organisation, the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development, has piloted pioneering approaches in this regard by marrying legal awareness-raising, with psycho-social techniques and cognitive based therapies to help women translate new knowledge into action. The results of such pilots need to be documented, analysed and shared to strengthen the region’s knowledge base.

Ultimately, empowerment cannot exist unless women and men believe that the law can work for them; without this, a legally literate population, access to legal aid and high functioning institutions, are missed opportunities.

We need to think carefully about how we kick-start a fundamental rethink of how people of the WANA region perceive the value-added of their legal system. This is a generational shift, it involves men as well as women, and it must start now.