Legal Aid Referral Centers

UNIFEM is currently supporting the development of Legal Aid Referral Centers for women in Afghanistan at the request of the Ministry of Justice, and with funding from the Finland National UNIFEM Committee and the UN Human Rights Commission.

Recognizing a need

The need for referral centers was recognized as an increasing number of women began seeking legal assistance from the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA) for a wide variety of legal and supportive services that were not in the scope of MOWA's mandate.

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The Concept

At first, Family Response Units were established at participating local police stations, but due to a lack of anonymity and operational support, the current referral centre project was set up in their place. The basic concept of these referral centers was developed by UNIFEM in cooperation with MOWA and the Ministry of Interior, and has been seen many successes.

UNIFEM also supports the Afghan Women Judges Association in providing legal aid centers to women in Afghanistan by providing funding and technical support.

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Services

The referral centers provide legal advise, paralegal services, and other support for women who seek legal action, such as divorce, an end to domestic violence or land rights security. The centers also ensure that women are accompanied throughout the legal process of their case should it be referred to the local or national courts.

Referral centers are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and are staffed and utilized solely by women.

 

Also, as Afghanistan's police forces have been mandated to allocate 30% of employment positions to women, the recruitment process of women into the referral centers helps fulfill this commitment.

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Pilot Projects

The first pilot project centre is currently operating in the city of Jalalabad and is seeing many successes, as women are utilizing its services at all hours of the night. The director of the Gender and Justice programme states...

since the opening of the Jalalabad Referral centre, there has not been a single incident that has not been reported.

The second pilot project began in Parwan province at the end of December 2007, staffed in part by women paralegals trained through the national Paralegal Programme.

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Report of Legal Aid Available

As a monitoring and evaluation tool, the project for a
Qualitative and Quantitative Report of Legal Aid to Afghan Men and Women,
to be compiled by UNIFEM, is currently in place in legal aid centers in order to document the aid available to both men and women in Afghanistan.

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UNIFEM is the women’s fund at the United Nations. It provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programmes and strategies that promote women's human rights, political participation and economic security worldwide.
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