Access to justice by women is a vital component of what COVAW intends to achieve through its mantra “Movement building for social transformation”. Article 48 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 provides for access to justice that is provided at a reasonable rate. The Article mandates the State to ensure Access to Justice for all. However Civil Society Organizations (CSO) have in the past stepped in to ensure that justice is afforded to the less fortunate in the society. In complementarily with the government,COVAW seeks to
offer, in the next 5 years, access to justice to at least 400 women annually, who have been violated physically or sexually.
This is done through;
- Providing psycho-social support and legal aid at the two Gender Based Violence Recovery Centre’s (GBVRCs) at Kenyatta National Hospital and Mbagathi District Hospital to survivors of violence against women (VAW). The psycho-social support is offered to the survivors as a pre-cursor to the legal aid in order to determine the situations that the women have survived from. The legal aid offered is at two levels; there is the legal awareness of the Sexual Offences Act as well as other rights the women are entitled to claim and the second level is the litigation of the offences which enables the survivors to claim their judicial rights.
- Training of health workers, law enforcement agents, the community and the media on issues in tandem to violence against women and how to go about identifying forms of violence, condemning violence as well as litigating cases of violence against women (VAW).
- Undertaking litigation; Public Interest Litigation cases that will shape the course of the implementation of the Sexual Offences Act, the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 and International instruments such as CEDAW (The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women). Litigation of individual cases of violence against women (VAW) shall also be carried out to ensure women are able to access their justice.
