WLAC: Free legal aid bearing positive results

BY THE GUARDIAN REPORTER

The Free legal Aid training via mobile phones being offered by the Women Legal Aid Centre (WLAC), a non-governmental organisation, is said to have helped a majority of women living in villages to access information and proper avenues to pursue their rights.

This was revealed over the weekend in Dar es Salaam by the WLAC Coordinator of the ‘we can end all gender violence’ campaigns, Jane Salomo, at a one-day seminar between the group and leaders from the local government at the ward level in Kinondoni District.

Leaders were trained mainly on legal aid, way of combating and fighting against violence and ways of offering aid to the victims of violence.

“Evidence of our success of this type of legal aid is vivid because people have been using it and have managed to resolve the problems that have been facing troubling them…” said the coordinator.

She explained that the centre has a network of lawyers who receive the distress calls and hence it is not necessary for the client to physically visit the centre and the clients are reported to be responding positively to the system.

Women have long been victimised and undermined by violence in its many forms especially physical violence from spouses and or guardians. The problem is under reported due to stigma and lack of a strong legal system to enforce the law. Poor awareness is also blamed for the low rate of reports with many women not being aware of the law protecting them and care organizations or even emergency help numbers.

Cultural and traditional setbacks also hinder progress and complicate the problem. The coordinator cited the issue of female genital mutilation as one of the example where women see it as an ordinary phenomenon which doesn’t need to be reported to any security organ.

The result is that, as Salomo put it, approximately half of the country’s women have experienced violence of one nature or another but have not reported.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN (24/09/2012): http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=46157