Legal Empowerment
According to the United Nations: “Access to justice is a basic principle of the rule of law. In the absence of access to justice, people are unable to have their voice heard, exercise their rights, challenge discrimination or hold decision-makers accountable”. It also emphasizes the right of equal access to justice for all, including members of vulnerable groups.
In Nigeria, a large segment of the population, who are mostly poor, women and other disadvantaged groups do not have equal opportunities and protection from laws, justice system and policies. Instead of fostering inclusive and equitable growth, some laws and institutions tend to impose barriers and biases against the poor. This large segment of the population have low levels of literacy and find the justice system difficult and costly to navigate. Also, informal social norms and practices prevent women from accessing justice or having a voice.
Legal empowerment is a key pillar of human rights work which aims to strengthen the capacity of all people either as individuals or as members of a community to exercise their rights and use legal mechanisms to pursue transformative improvements to laws and systems. In other words, legal empowerment puts the power of the law back into people’s hands.
IWEI has built a niche for itself in its Legal Empowerment work which aims to promote safe communities by ensuring access to justice, security and peace for the poor and vulnerable – women and children.
One of the ways it does that is by training community-based people in basic legal skills legal skills, for example problem-solving, advice-giving, mediation and statement-taking, in order to serve their communities which are mainly in the urban poor, semi – urban and rural communities.
They are more cost-effective and accessible than lawyers. Due their understanding of the local context in which they operate, they use their knowledge of the formal justice system and alternative means of resolution such as mediation sometimes in combination with the use of the traditional system to help women, girls, marginalized and the indigent to resolve their justice problems.
Other services include promote empowerment by fostering legal awareness through educating and providing information on rights, laws and accessing justice, referrals to pro-bono lawyers, linkages to estranged families and advocacy.
Community-based paralegals play an important role though often underestimated as they are bridging the gap between the people and the justice system.
Our Ethos
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Expectation from parents
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