Bringing Justice Home:Paralegal Training for Rural Women

As part of addressing shrinking civic space in Kenyan communities, Haki Nawiri Afrika with support from Innovation for Change and in collaboration with Legal Resources Foundation, organised a paralegal training to enhance capacity of rural women on their legal rights, to enable them understand the justice process and nurture them to report cases of abuse and defend their rights when violated.The training also aimed at forming a movement for justice for rural women because they are one of the categories of marginalised groups in Kenya and Africa in general.The training took place in Muvuti-Kiima Kimwe ward in Machakos County-Eastern part of of Kenya.

The training took place from 31st January to 1st February 2021 and had 31 participants.To start off the session, the participants were asked to share the challenges faced in their community.The responses were :

-Lack of education

-Land disputes

-Women being raped

-Lack of employment opportunities

-Women struggling to break up children

-Abuse and violence

-Gender based violence

-Inability to access basic services e.g clothing , food , school fees for children

-Sexual violence from husbands

-Overwork within the homestead

-Polygamy ( leading to abandonment of the first wife)

-Defilement

-Absence of peace in the household

-Women being disrespected

-Poor health

-Rape

-Lack of knowledge on rights

-Homelessness

-Women being beaten

-Mistreatment of orphans

-Mothers being chased out of their matrimonial homes together with children

-Being oppressed by in-laws

-Lack of information about rights

-Family conflicts

-Orphans being sidelined

The training enabled access to knowledge on how to tackle justice challenges in the community including the importance of local women being part of the Court Users Committee(CUCs).

Haki Nawiri Afrika is working on strategies to bring more partners on board to support an Access to Justice Project as there are a lot of challenges facing rural communities more so women and children. Furthermore this calls for a project that works on education for rural women and initiatives that provide economic support as these women depend on agriculture as the main source of income , the area is semi- arid thus difficult to depend entirely on agriculture .Another challenge for this particular community is teenage pregnancy and the inherent societal stigma on teenage motherhood.