Details

The Conference will cultivate connections between over 50 sub-regional women leaders from CSOs, ultimately resulting in the creation and implementation of tangible “action plans” to enhance women’s access to justice in the sub-region.  We  will execute a comprehensive post-conference strategy that will center around launching and maintaining  an online community of practice at the Maghreb sub-regional level to continue to  exchange experiences, and knowledge sharing on solutions to deliver friendly user justice. Also, the project will request country  Briefs’ submissions from participants on  challenges and good practices in addressing women’s rights through access to civil  justice (e.g. family law) to be featured in a special edition of Mohamed V University Faculty of Law Journal in coordination with CNDH.

It is important to examine the common obstacles to women’s access to justice  in the broader sub-region to present a holistic view of the intersectionality of legal, political, and socio-economic trends and their effects on women’s access to justice. In particular, focusing on the  Maghreb countries, rather than the wider MENA region, offers a useful and sharper comparison. The shared and interrelated histories and political trends of the Maghreb states, as well as their similar sociopolitical and economic structures, form a unique and distinctive focus point within a wider regional context.

The two objectives for this project detailed below are closely interrelated and complementary.  For example, strengthening the capacity of civil society to advance rule of law will be achieved, in part, through building strategic multidisciplinary partnerships. 

Strengthen the capacity of women’s civil society organizations practitioners to advance rule of law and access to justice for women: The workshop aims to   strengthen the ability of civil society to improve rule of law and access to justice in the sub-region.

Build strategic and sustainable multidisciplinary partnerships: Our multidisciplinary approach encourages collaboration among women CSOs that have not, necessarily, collaborated on the access to justice front. Following this inaugural sub-regional workshop, we will convene a Maghreb  Women’s Access to Justice Community of Practice to continue the cross-fertilization of experiences and to follow-up on proposed recommendations.