Justice for Pacific & Caribbean Women & Girls

Following a trip to the Pacific in March to advance the Justice for Women & Girls in the Pacific program, the ICAAD team has been consulting with Chief Justices across the region, discussing the need for better access to lower court decisions and potential opportunities to give trainings. The Chief Justice of the Marshall Islands has volunteered to send DV and sexual offence cases to ICAAD going back to 2000 for inclusion in PacLII and the TrackGBV (gender-based violence) sentencing database we are building. 

ICAAD's sentencing report was presented by the Pacific Judicial Strengthening Initiative (PJSI) - run by Federal Courts of Australia - at a judicial consultation in April in Samoa, with 14 Chief Justices attending from across the region. The Chief Justice of Tonga and a Judge in Samoa also expressed interest in our analysis, and are interested in ensuring that Tongan and Samoan cases also are analyzed for gender-bias by ICAAD.

With your support, we are:

• Promoting legal reform by providing actionable GBV data to local advocates;
• Influencing judicial attitudes and behaviors through rule of law trainings;
• Partnering with Chief Justices to increase transparency in court systems;
• Training women’s rights organizations regionally;
• Teaching a human rights course on gender bias in the judiciary to law students;
• Building a scholarship fund for local women to attend law school.