Justice and Human Rights Fiji Project #20290

Justice for Pacific & Caribbean Women & Girls

by International Center for Advocates Against Discrimination (ICAAD)

Justice for Pacific & Caribbean Women & Girls

Project Report | Jun 25, 2020
TrackGBV Development Updates

By Jaspreet Singh | Co-Founder + Advocacy Strategist

Expanding TrackGBV

We are pleased to announce that TrackGBV is expanding to Latin America and the Caribbean. In the coming months we will be conducting strategic assessments and pilot case law analysis in multiple countries in the region, as well as partnering with local governments and organizations.

We have already started working with United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM) to conduct a needs assessment, outreach to the Supreme Court, and to connect with local grassroots activists to better understand the access to justice barriers in Belize.

Dashboard Development

We have begun development of the interactive data dashboard for TrackGBV, after receiving support from Clifford Chance. Combined with case law analysis of 5,000 cases in 12 countries across the Pacific, the dashboard will provide valuable data to advocates and judiciaries across the region. The database and dashboard are being designed and tested with users in the Pacific.

medical reports included

Example: Data on inclusion of medical reports

Train the Trainers Program

We are currently developing a Train the Trainers program for TrackGBV alongside pro bono lawyers at Clifford Chance. The program will cover the foundations of gender discrimination, including: defining gender-based violence (GBV) and related concepts; GBV’s connection to bias, myths, stereotypes; and specific customary practices. The program will also provide the preliminary regional and country-specific TrackGBV data from ICAAD’s case law analysis as well as an overview of legislation and policies related to domestic violence and sexual offences. The result of the training will be that participants will have the tools needed to identify gaps in judicial decision making regarding GBV cases and can use these tools to suggest reform. The training is being developed at the request of the Ministry of Justice in Samoa.

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Feb 27, 2020
Report Launched at Commonwealth Equality & Justice Forum 2020

By Jaspreet K Singh | Co-Founder & Advocacy Strategist

ICAAD, President Faure, & Mauritius Advocates

Discriminatory Laws Under the Spotlight

The Commonwealth Equality & Justice Forum 2020 was hosted by the Royal Commonwealth Society and brought together over fifty Equality & Justice Alliance programme partners, Government officials, civil society leaders and legal experts to share experiences on reforming discriminatory laws in different Commonwealth countries.

At the Forum, which ran from Feb. 12-14, ICAAD launched and presented a new report, A Comparative Legal Review of the Impact of Gender Stereotyping on Judicial Decisions in Violence Against Women Cases Across the Pacific Island Region. The report was authored by ICAAD, and was commissioned and edited by Sisters for Change as part of its work under the Equality & Justice Alliance Programme to reform laws that discriminate against women and girls and LGBT people across the Commonwealth.

Hansdeep Singh and Jaspreet Singh, ICAAD Co-Founders with Jane Gordon and Ali Gordon, Co-Founders of Sisters for Change

The report analyzes the development of international and regional standards and jurisprudence on State obligations to eliminate gender bias and stereotyping. It also identifies case studies of good practice from Commonwealth jurisdictions including Canada, Fiji, Namibia, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, which have produced pioneering case law and domestic legislation explicitly targeting gender bias. Finally, the report examines the scope of gender-based violence against women and girls in the Pacific Island Region and provides an in-depth analysis of the impact of gender bias and stereotyping on judicial decisions in violence against women across seven countries in the Commonwealth Pacific Island Region – Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Kiribati.

Read the Report

Jaspreet Singh Presenting on the Impact of Bias on Judicial Sentencing in GBV Cases

Some of the excellent presentations at the Forum included:

Ending Discrimination in the Commonwealth: Challenges & Opportunities
Application of Good Practice Research to the Reform of Sexual Offences Laws
Civil Society Insights on Curbing Faith-Based Backlash to Equality Laws
Building Technical Capacity and Engaging with Parliament and Civil Society to Reform Discriminatory Laws in St. Lucia
The Role of Youth Champions in Advancing Equality in the Commonwealth
Anti-Discrimination and Hate Crimes Legislation, Belize
Making the Case for Sexual Reproductive Health Rights
Advancing Equality in Seychelles
Gender Stereotyping in Violence Against Women Cases In the Pacific Island Region

The Conference included wide-ranging stakeholders in both civil society and government. Moreover, the President of Seychelles Danny Faure met with all the delegates from the Annual Forum and pledged that his country would reform its discriminatory laws this year.

ICAAD is a registered 501(c)(3) with special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

info@icaad.ngo

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Dec 4, 2019
Ending GBV: Leave No Survivor Behind

By Hansdeep Singh | Co-Founder, Legal Innovator

Erin Thomas, Research & Policy Coordinator just finished a trip to Niue to continue the work ICAAD started in 2017 around assessing gender-based violence in Niue, and we’d like to share a few of her notes from the field with you:

Fakaalofa lahi atu ki a mutolu (Hello all, in the language of Niue)

The 2017 ICAAD report, Assessing Gender-based Violence in Niue, revealed several challenges and opportunities for understanding GBV in small communities. With 1,600 people on Nuie and many more living in New Zealand, there are unique challenges for reporting and addressing GBV.

In October, I returned to Niue as a part of my master’s thesis at the University of Auckland, work with ICAAD, and in partnership with the Government of Niue. The goal of the trip, funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, is to explore both the formal spaces as well as the informal family spaces for dealing with GBV in terms of disclosure, accountability, gossip/talk, and education.

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a sensitive topic to discuss. My research in Niue is aimed at not only understanding the spaces in which GBV can be discussed, but also identifying and expanding new spaces through innovative qualitative methods. While most seek out quantitative data on prevalence, we sometimes forget the power and truth in narrative. The stories we tell ourselves and others drive us in our decision-making; they are literally how we make sense of the world.

My goal in this fieldwork is to elevate narrative as data. Data that in many ways has already been analyzed. Through family tree mapping interviews, I’m learning about how women make sense of their relationships, their roles in the family, and the meanings and consequences of GBV at different points in time.

Understanding the formal processes is important, but we know there is a lot that goes unreported. Further, data points like prevalence rates of different types of violence only tell us so much. While prevalence studies can provide useful data points, narratives are what connect the dots. Coalescing those narratives can provide a clearer picture of how disclosure, accountability, talk, and education related to GBV play out in a small community like Niue. It might also provide us with more qualitative tools to understand GBV in other places and further gender justice.

The fieldwork involves two parts. In the first part, I interviewed 27 key government and community leaders to understand the formal spaces for dealing with GBV and possible avenues they see for improving gender justice. In the second part, I used an innovative interviewing method involving 14 women to explore indirect experiences with GBV through family tree mapping. I will return mid-year 2020 to present a report to the Government of Niue and to meet with key government and community leaders to discuss pathways forward.

Tulou, fakaaue lahi. (Thank you)

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Additionally, Erin in collaboration with Megan Lee Candolfi published an article on OpenGlobalRights: Is climate change worsening gender-based violence in the Pacific Islands? In the Pacific Islands, gender inequality and gender-based violence are exacerbated by climate change, including through natural disasters, migration, and displacement. But these changes do not have to be inevitable.

Please read the full article here: https://www.openglobalrights.org/climate-change-worsening-gender-based-violence-in-pacific-islands/?lang=English.

In our next report, we'll detail Erin's work in Guam, Federated States of Micronesia, and Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Photo: Jeff Tan/The Pacific Climate Warriors (Some

Links:

Is climate change worsening gender-based violence in the Pacific

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