Justice for All: Reflections on legal awareness, community power and what happens when people know their rights (II)

The Liberian peace activist and Nobel laureate, Leymah Gbowee, is often found in her speeches echoing the words of Martin Luther King Jr.: “Peace is not just the absence of war. Peace is the presence of justice.” The words come from his book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story.

For many people, justice is imagined as something distant. It exists in courtrooms, in legal books, in the language of lawyers and judges, in government buildings and policies ordinary people may never read. But in reality, justice also exists in smaller and quieter moments. It exists in whether a woman can stand as surety for her child. It exists in whether a person knows they cannot legally be arrested in place of another person. It exists in whether someone understands the difference between a civil dispute and a criminal offence. It exists in whether communities know what the law says before their rights are violated.

This understanding sits at the centre of the Justice for All project implemented by Isa Wali Empowerment Initiative.

The project, implemented with support from the European Union and International IDEA through the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption (RoLAC) Programme, began as a one-month intervention in 2024. Seeing the impact and the success recorded within that time, it was then expanded into a second phase across five local government areas in Kano State: Bichi, Dawakin Tofa, Rano, Ungogo and Wudil.

In the first part of this article, we shared the methods we used in delivering this project. Now, we share some of our findings and why the Justice for All project sits in our hearts.

Read the first part of this article

What the law says and what we saw

One of the hardest things about working on legal awareness is confronting the distance between what the law says and what many people continue to experience. The ACJL clearly prohibits arrest in lieu, yet we encountered people who had either experienced it directly or witnessed it happening around them. The law recognises women as eligible sureties, yet women continue to be rejected on the basis of gender. The law distinguishes civil matters from criminal offences, yet civil disputes continue to result in arrests.

Again and again, we encountered a troubling pattern: the existence of legal protections does not automatically translate into their implementation. In some cases, this gap is sustained by weak institutional knowledge and by power imbalances. In others, by the fact that many people simply do not know enough about the law to challenge violations when they happen.

One case that deeply troubled us emerged during one of the legal outreaches conducted at a correctional facility. There, we met *Magaret.

Magaret revealed to us that she had been arrested in place of a relative who was not found when her house was raided. While in detention, she discovered she was pregnant. She carried the pregnancy in custody, gave birth and was now raising the child in captivity despite never having been tried for a crime. Her case was later taken up by our partners at the Legal Aid Council.

But the case raises difficult questions: How many people remain in detention because they lack access to legal support?; How many people do not know that what happened to them was unlawful?; How many vulnerable people remain trapped within systems they do not understand?; And how many violations continue simply because accountability mechanisms remain too distant from ordinary people?

The importance of community based justice actors

The project also revealed how important community-based justice actors can be. Our paralegals across the five LGAs became important bridges between communities and justice institutions. Because they lived and worked within the communities, people trusted them. People approached them with cases they may never have taken to formal institutions directly.

In Ungogo, our paralegal, Mal. Ismail shared the story of a widow whose son had been arrested following a civil dispute. When she went to stand as surety for him, she was told to return with the boy’s father because women were not trusted to stand as sureties.

But she remembered what she had learned during one of IWEI’s sensitisation sessions. So instead of accepting the decision quietly, she contacted our paralegal. He was able to intervene and inform the officers involved that they were infringing on her rights.

This may appear to be one isolated incident. But in reality, it points to something larger. Legal awareness changes outcomes most effectively when people can connect knowledge to accessible support systems.

Knowledge alone is important, but knowledge combined with trusted community structures becomes even more powerful.

Watch our documentary on the Justice for All project

An unexpected outcome

One of the most unexpected outcomes from the project emerged during our school engagements. After one of the sensitisation sessions at Government Girls Arabic Secondary School, the vice principal administration, Haj. Abdullahi, shared something with us.

She said, “When they saw your team and almost all of you were young women, including the lawyers, they were impressed. They saw that they can do more with their lives, they are taking school more seriously.”

This observation really gladdened our hearts. Because although the project was focused on legal awareness, what the girls encountered during those sessions was larger than legal information. 

They encountered visibility when they saw our near- all women team. They saw women occupying spaces associated with authority, law, advocacy and public engagement. 

Reflecting on the significance of this, Executive Director Amina Hanga noted: “For some girls, the sensitisation may have been the first time they witnessed women confidently interpreting the law, leading public discussions and occupying spaces of authority.” 

In contexts where girls rarely encounter women in visible justice and leadership roles, representation itself can become a form of empowerment. 

This is important because legal empowerment is not only about knowledge of rights. It is also about confidence. It is about whether girls and women believe they are entitled to participate in public life, question injustice and see institutions as spaces where they belong too. 

In many ways, the project unintentionally became an example of this. The girls were watching women speak publicly, lead discussions, answer questions and occupy professional spaces. And that visibility carried meaning.

Key learnings from Justice for All

The Justice for All project reached nearly 20,000 people directly and indirectly through community sensitisation sessions, legal clinics, media campaigns, school engagements and outreach activities. But beyond numbers, the project forced us to think more deeply about what justice work requires.

One of the clearest lessons was that legal awareness cannot exist independently from institutional strengthening. Communities need information, but institutions also need support. Many of the violations communities described point to the need for continuous training and step-down learning within law enforcement and justice institutions themselves, because laws alone do not implement themselves.

If frontline justice actors are not adequately informed about legal provisions, communities continue to suffer even where legal protections already exist.

The project also reinforced the importance of trust between communities and justice institutions. For many people, formal justice systems still feel intimidating, inaccessible or distant. Bridging this gap requires more than awareness campaigns.

It requires sustained engagement with institutions, building sustained referral pathways, working with  community-based actors and the creation of justice systems that people believe they can approach safely.

The project lead, Amina Sulaiman Esq., reflected on this when she said:

“Behind every sensitization session was the possibility that someone, somewhere, would remember their rights at the exact moment they needed them most. Seeing that happen reminded us that legal awareness can truly change outcomes.

Watch our animation on one of the key provisions of the ACJL

This project also showed us that sustainable justice begins with informed communities. When ordinary people understand the protections within the law, accountability becomes a shared responsibility.”

We began this project with a focus on legal awareness, guided by the understanding that knowing the law is one of the ways justice becomes real in people’s daily lives.

Because perhaps peace is not simply the absence of conflict, as Leymah Gbowee often reminds us through the words of Martin Luther King Jr. Perhaps peace is also what becomes possible when people understand their rights well enough to challenge injustice.

When women can stand as sureties and know they can. When communities question unlawful arrests. When girls begin to imagine themselves in rooms they once thought were unreachable.

Maybe this is where justice begins to take root. Quietly, gradually, through ordinary people learning that the law belongs to them too.

*Names marked with an asterisk have been changed for privacy and protection reasons.