On video: applying a women-centred approach to access to justice (UN side event)

This panel discussion was held today at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The event addressed barriers for women accessing justice and look at ways to implement a women-centred approach to address these issues, considering ways to ensure that gender issues are robustly integrated into human rights investigations and judicial mechanisms and are properly implemented by the actors operating within these areas.

Discriminatory legislation can prevent women from accessing the justice mechanisms that should be available to them particularly where these same mechanisms may then be used against them, for example a woman afraid to report rape if she may be prosecuted for adultery.

In addition, mechanisms that are not inherently discriminatory may become so in the way they are interpreted and applied. Prejudices of judicial actors can constitute a major obstacle to women’s access to justice and undermine even the most protective of laws.

Moderator:

Saman Zia-Zarifi, Secretary General of the International Commission of Jurists

Panellists:

• Lisa Gormley, Research Officer, Centre for Women, Peace and Security, London School of Economics and Political Science

• H.E. Athaliah Lesiba Molokomme, Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organizations in Geneva, Botswana

• Justice Sanji Monageng, Former Justice and Vice President of the International Criminal Court and ICJ Commissioner

Event organized by the ICJ in co-ordination with the Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN, and UN Women.

Watch the video:

Side event ICJ WHR (flyer in PDF)