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Focus
on Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association (ZWLA) - 10 year anniversary
September 04, 2002
Other Players
The other players in the program areas that ZWLA works in are as follows:-
The Legal Resources
Foundation and the Legal Projects Centres around Zimbabwe. These also
provide legal assistance to poor people and conduct legal and civic education
workshops. The LRF in addition publishes legal education materials for
public consumption as well as specifically for lawyers. It has worked
with the judiciary and the police in human rights education. Further the
LRF is involved in advocacy for the upholding of the rule of law and good
governance in Zimbabwe. It however, has no specific focus on women’s rights
or children’s rights.
The Ministry of Justice
provides free legal aid generally at magistrate courts level but no individual
legal representation in court, in respect of civil matters. Again there
is no specific focus on women and children. In criminal cases an accused
person can apply for free representation (known as pro deo) normally
for cases to be tried in the High Court and Supreme Court where the sentence
likely to be imposed is severe.
The High Court in
Harare and Bulawayo also has a roster system where lawyers in private
practice are allocated civil cases, which fall under the jurisdiction
of the High Court (plus Z$200 000.00 in terms of money).
Musasa Project has
offices in Harare, Bulawayo and Gweru and is a close partner of ZWLA.
It focuses on domestic violence only and particularly issues of counselling,
basic legal aid with no court representation, and advocacy for law reform
in that area. Musasa also does public education on issues of domestic
violence and have outreach units and mobile units in this regard. It tends
to refer women and children with legal problems to ZWLA for legal assistance.
ZWLA in turn sends women and children with domestic violence problems
to Musasa Project for counselling. The two organisations also collaborate
in their public education and advocacy work.
Women in Law in Southern
Africa (WILSA), operates from offices in Milton Park in Harare. However,
their research work which is action oriented is not only countrywide but
also covers the whole southern Africa region. ZWLA cooperates with WILSA
in pre–research consultations as well as in the post research consultations
and dissemination of the research results. ZWLA in fact, often uses the
results of WILSA research to guide and determine which areas its own programs
should focus on. The focus of WILSA is obviously on the impact of the
formal and informal laws on women’s lives in southern Africa. In addition
the organisation has started a legal aid department and legal education
and advocacy program based on its research. The reach of these programs
is mainly Harare, and again the organisation although focusing on women,
does not go to court. Most litigious cases will be referred to ZWLA.
In the arena of legal
education and advocacy specifically, aside from the above-mentioned organisations,
the Women’s Action Group (WAG), also conducts legal education workshops
generally with its grassroots members in the provinces on specific topics
of concern to women. ZWLA has in the past worked with WAG in these workshops
sometimes providing legal expertise. In advocacy work the Women’s Coalition
has been a useful conduit for legal information from ZWLA to be disseminated
to a wider audience of women – grassroots, middle class and professional.
ZWLA has also used the Coalition to increase the advocacy campaigns for
the reform of the Constitution and also in the area of women’s political
participation and the whole issue of gender violence in Zimbabwe.
ZWLA is a member of
the Test Cases Committee and Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum. Within these
two organisations ZWLA’s role is to bring to the fore issues and cases
of women’s human rights violations and possible court challenges that
would deal with sex or gender discrimination in Zimbabwe. The Test Cases
Committee vets applications made for assistance and initiates or supports
possible legal test cass that challenge unconstitutional practices or
laws. The Human Rights Forum has lawyers on staff who deal with cases
of state sponsored violence or organised violence. The focus of both institutions
is not specifically engendered and it is not all women’s violations that
these bodies would take up, as their mandates are somewhat narrow in focus.
Many violations of women’s rights occur in the private spheres and are
perpetrated by private individuals and not in the public arena.
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