Financing women’s access to justice

Amina sat in a village courtroom in Cameroon, listening quietly to the heated exchange between her husband and Vera Ngassa, a tough-talking state prosecutor. Amina, who is in her early 40s, is a battered wife who bravely brought her husband to court in order to seek a divorce.

Despite his continued abuse, Amina’s husband was unwilling to grant her a divorce, and in order to convince the judge of his guilt, Ms Ngassa fired off a barrage of questions exposing the brutality of his actions. It emerged that he started beating her because he thought she was having an affair, after she visited her parents one day without his permission.

“In my culture, a woman does not leave her home without asking her husband for permission,” Amina’s husband insisted.

After a few more exchanges, the judge granted Amina a divorce, and also sentenced her husband to 17 years in jail.

This court scene is the subject of an award-winning documentary – ‘Sisters in Law’ – that was shown at an event organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat on 8 March 2008 to mark International Women’s Day.

‘Sisters in Law’ examines the work of Ms Ngassa and Court President Beatrice Ntuba, as they struggle to help women find the courage to fight often-difficult cases of abuse, despite pressures from their families and communities.

Breaking the silence

Commenting on the plight of the characters in the documentary, Betty Mould-Iddrisu, Director of the Secretariat’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Division, noted that many women are often reluctant to speak openly of abuse at the hands of their husbands for fear of social stigma. Those who do find neither sympathy nor justice, she observed.

Ms Mould-Iddrisu said that “in many communities, if a woman says she has been beaten, people will ask – ‘what did you do to make your husband beat you?’”

In some common law countries, she explained, women are often marginalised and denied access to justice due to their own poverty, the persistence of outmoded traditional and customary prejudices barring a woman’s right to litigation. Additionally, many women – especially those in the rural areas – are often unaware of their legal rights, and even those who are not ignorant often find themselves obstructed from seeking justice by their financial handicaps and low literacy rates which make them fearful of the formal court system.

More money needed for legal aid

The best way of increasing women’s access to justice, she said, is education including sensitising women about their legal rights, simplifying laws and giving more women the means to access resources.

Ms Mould-Iddrisu added that more support should be accorded to women’s lawyer groups who provide legal aid and literacy programmes, which help women have greater access to justice in different parts of the world.

Citing the example of FIDA K, she stated that the FIDA Kenya office receives an average of 100 clients a day in its three legal aid clinics situated in Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa. The cases range from succession and inheritance disputes, separation, and divorce, custody of children, maintenance and division of matrimonial property. The organisation also deals with cases where there is discrimination on the basis of sex; and cases involving gender-based violence such as rape, defilement, incest and assault.

A multi-dimensional approach, according to Ms Mould-Iddrisu, is needed by all stakeholders including governments, civil society and donors to commit resources and action, before women’s access to justice can become a reality.

Secretariat Links:

• Law
• Gender