Providing Legal Services to the Most Marginalised
Through strategic partnerships we provide accessible legal services to victims of discrimination. To do this, we use our expertise in designing legal service models and rolling them out with partners. Where necessary we support clients directly in taking on litigation. Some examples of our work in this area include: Supporting victims of discriminatory torture in Nigeria and LGBT victims of discrimination in Russia to access justice.
Developing a network of paralegals to provide advice for female victims of gender-based violence and other discrimination in Kenya.
Jane, one of many women we helped in Kenya, had been subject to severe abuse by her in-laws. She had been driven from her home and denied her property rights. Through our project, she was empowered to seek justice. You can watch Jane's story here.
Strategic Litigation
Through strategic litigation we help to raise important legal questions on equality and non-discrimination. We help our partners in different countries identify opportunities for strategic litigation and to build cases, and where necessary, we journey with claimants to regional or international courts. We use our expertise in equality and non-discrimination to provide amicus curiae briefs to courts and memoranda to lawyers.
Some examples of interventions at the regional level include:
- To the European Court of Human Rights on the case of Eremia v Moldova which obliged states to recognise domestic violence as discriminatory ill-treatment.
- To the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the case of Gretel Artavia Murillo et al (“In Vitro Fertilization”) v Costa Rica which focused on the discriminatory impact of the total ban on in vitro fertilisation on women and infertile persons.
- To the European Committee of Social Rights on the complaint Equal Rights Trust v Bulgaria which relates to Bulgaria's Family Allowances for Children Act and its breaches in relation to the Revised European Social Charter.
