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Q&A: Putting the Force of Law Behind Women’s Rights

Cléo Fatoorehchi interviews JOAN WINSHIP of the International Association of Women Judges

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 23 2011 (IPS) - The two-week Commission on the Status of Women at United Nations headquarters draws together a wide array of civil society leaders as well as policy-makers and U.N. development experts to compare notes on the many facets of women’s empowerment.

Joan Winship Credit: Courtesy of IAWJ

Joan Winship Credit: Courtesy of IAWJ

Joan Winship is the executive director of the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ), a non-profit group founded two decades ago. With more than 4,000 members hailing from 90 countries, IAWJ has designed and implemented numerous programmes to empower women judges – and through them, the societies in which they live.

With nearly 10 years at the helm of IAWJ, Winship has a long and distinguished career in the fields of human rights, rule of law, and international issues. She spoke to IPS about gender bias in the courts and the new U.N. Women agency.

Q: What’s the importance of the judicial element in women’s situations? A: You can have all the advocacy and grassroots movements, and the encouraging of legislation on issues of violence and discrimination against women. But once you get the law passed, it’s not going to be effective and impact women unless it is both implemented and upheld. And so it is ultimately the courts that should be the ones to make sure that the law is implemented and women get equal justice in a society.

Q: What real successes in women’s rights have you seen since the creation of IAWJ? A: Over the course of the 20 years we’ve been in existence, we have focused much of our work to create more opportunity for access to justice for women. Through our members and through the associations that they form within their own countries, we do training with men and women judges to make sure that they are issuing decisions in [accord] with international conventions on human rights, CEDAW [the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women], and regional instruments like the African Charter or other such agreements.


What we try to do is not only the training but then follow up by collecting case decisions where magistrates and judges are actually using the international human rights legal tools, [and] issuing decisions that will protect a woman in an inheritance case, for a property rights case, for divorce, and custody case for her children.

The other thing that judges have had a role in doing is identifying where there are gaps in legal and judicial systems. Many of our members [lobby] to see that domestic violence legislation is passed, that federal offenses acts are passed, that such things as family courts or juvenile courts are established where there haven’t been any. So we have seen considerable progress, albeit there is still much more to do.

Q: Could you give an example of your work? A: The IAWJ is just completing a programme in partnership with the Tanzanian Women Judges Association, and the community-based organisation called the Society for Women and AIDS in Africa. This project was called Jurisprudence on the Ground.

It really came out of a presentation at the IAWJ made on a panel at the Commission on the Status of Women meeting in 2007, when we were talking of how women judges were identifying the links between HIV/AIDS and the issues of discrimination and violence against women.

The project brought together the women judges in Tanzania with the community-based leaders. Together they created a discussion for both sides, so that the community-based leaders could understand better what rights women have, what information they could pass on to the members of their community, on such issues as how to file a case, why she should write a will, how to file a complaint if she does not feel she was fairly treated by court personnel, other issues like that.

In return, the community women shared with the women judges what they saw as barriers and obstacles that women faced when they tried to go to court. Together they agreed on what training community leaders needed to understand these issues, the judges developed and implemented this training programme and then the community leaders conducted trainings throughout their network, so that they could ultimately reach people at the village and ward levels. Together they produced brochures in Swahili that have been distributed in villages and wards in different parts of Tanzania.

Q: Do you think the new U.N. Women is a positive step for women’s rights? A: We have worked with and received funding from the U.N. Trust Fund against Violence against Women through UNIFEM, and we have been a participant in the CSW and other meetings, so we have been active in different entities that have come together to form U.N. Women.

We think that having one entity is a very positive step, rather than having the roles and responsibilities divided in different parts of the U.N. U.N. Women should certainly heighten both the effectiveness and the opportunity for an agency like the U.N. Women to bring gender issues and programmes more effectively throughout the U.N. system.

Q: How could you define the effectiveness of the CSW? A: Each year the CSW brings issues to the fore that wouldn’t be there otherwise. Certainly the role both of governments and non-governments organisations are key to keeping that gender as an issue out-front at the U.N. It’s always our hope that the CSW makes a major impact on programmes and issues that U.N. faces and to which the U.N. should respond.

 
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