The National Association of Women Judges (IAWJ-U) is pleased to announce its joint partnership with the International Development Law Organization (IDLO). Through a 2-year intervention, IAWJ-U is collaborating with IDLO under IDLOs Community Justice Program (CJP).

IAWJ-U is a membership organization comprised of judicial officers from the lower and upper bench (Judges, Magistrates and Registrars) who are committed to enforce women’s rights and increasing women’s access to the legal system under the Judiciary. The Association was established in 1994 as a branch of the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ) and has since spearheaded advocacy in the advancement and promotion of gender equality especially improving access to justice for women and children. It operates on the premise that, through informed leadership, members can be catalysts for social transformation. IAWJ-U believes that, as leaders at different levels, its members have the opportunity to effect change through decision making processes in and outside the bench.
IDLO is the only global intergovernmental organization exclusively devoted to promoting the rule of law and sustainable development with a vision of a world in which every person lives with dignity and under the rule of law.

Under its CJP, IDLO in Uganda focuses on legally empowering grassroots communities and enhancing capacity of duty bearers within the Justice Law and Order Sector (JLOS) at the national and community levels to provide the citizens, particularly the most vulnerable, with quality legal knowledge, legal aid and other justice services to uphold their basic rights, challenge their grievances in an equitable manner, and obtain effective justice remedy and compensation from both formal and informal justice mechanisms. To learn more about IDLO, visit https://www.idlo.int/

The goal of the joint partnership between IAWJ-U and IDLO is to contribute to the dispensation of gender sensitive and responsive adjudication for rural and marginalized women and girls in Uganda. This project will be a step in the right direction to fulfilling IAWJ-Us vision of enhanced justice for all especially the marginalized. The envisaged outcomes of the joint project are an increased awareness and utilization of policies and legislation affecting dispensation of gender sensitive justice and enhanced capacity of IAWJ-U to promote gender sensitive and responsive justice.

The joint project will undertake specific activities targeted at availing tools to judicial officers for the protection of women and girls, increasing knowledge of judicial officers in handling gender cases, increasing peer learning opportunities for Uganda women judges and the operational capacity of IAWJ-U to implement activities on gender justice.

Some of the key priority activities under the joint IAWJ-U-IDLO project are compiling a comprehensive compendium/bench book on the Laws of equality and decisions of court to distribute to judicial officers, conducting, publishing and disseminating research on increasing trends of defilement against heavy court penalties, conducting training in the five regions of Uganda for judges, magistrates and state attorneys on gender justice adjudication among other activities.
IAWJ-U believes that with its committed vision to justice and IDLO’s support, the goal of the project will be attained and lives of the vulnerable improved.

 

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