Adolescent Girls Legal Defense Fund

Adolescent girls in Africa are among the world’s most vulnerable – if not the most – and in a special class of their own. The emergence of girls’ sexuality during puberty generates damaging responses – societies feel free to disinvest in their schooling and personal development while appropriating their labor, sexuality, and fertility. Despite nominal legal recourse, young girls have no socially protected means to protest abuses imposed by family, partners, teachers, or strangers. The leverage and urgency of undertaking their cases, however, is clear. The Adolescent Girls’ Legal Defense Fund was created to support and publicize strategically selected legal cases, diversified to represent the most common and consequential human rights abuses of adolescent girls in eastern and southern Africa.

Cases

Equality Now, with an office in Nairobi, stands out as a particularly appropriate host for the Adolescent Girls’ Legal Defense Fund given its proven ability to find and support the organizations that can prosecute these cases. First, Equality Now has already been involved in litigation on behalf of girls in African countries, including an FGM case in Kenya, one in Tanzania and an Ethiopian case involving abduction, rape and forced marriage. Second, a new tool, the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, entered into force in November 2005, which Equality Now, as part of the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) coalition, was instrumental in bringing about. This new African regional treaty will give African women’s groups a new avenue of recourse when domestic litigation is unsuccessful.

Cases will be chosen based on their significance and the prospects of finding restitution for the victims and reshaping the rule of law by setting precedents or highlighting the need for equal protection under the law. Plans will be made to bring the cases to the public’s attention and foster public debate and more widespread rights-seeking. Equality Now has identified two cases for support from the Adolescent Girls’ Legal Defense Fund:

Ethiopia
Marriage by abduction, a common practice in parts of Ethiopia, occurs when a man kidnaps a woman or girl, rapes her and then pressures her to marry him. In 2005, following advocacy efforts by the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA), supported by an international Equality Now campaign, Ethiopia abolished the law that provided for exemption from punishment in these cases of abduction and rape, if the rapist subsequently married his victim. Equality Now's campaign highlighted the case of Woineshet Zebene Negash, who was abducted at age 13 and raped. Although she was rescued and her rapist arrested, when he was released on bail he abducted her again and held her for a month until she managed to escape, but only after he had forced her to sign a marriage certificate. Those involved in Woineshet’s abduction were sentenced to prison; however, in December 2003 the decision was overturned by an appeals court, and the perpetrators were released. Woineshet and her father, backed by Equality Now and EWLA, appealed the case to the Cassation Court, which upheld the decision of the appeals court. The abductor and accomplices remain free, and all domestic legal avenues have been exhausted.

Equality Now, in collaboration with EWLA, decided to petition the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ rights, in a further effort to seek justice for Woineshet and to encourage a decision from the Commission that would press for equal protection of the law in Ethiopia. In the complaint, filed in May 2007, Equality Now and EWLA noted the continued prevalence of the bride abduction practice in Ethiopia and noted reports that Woineshet’s abductor has forcibly abducted and married another girl in the village. The Commission is expected to consider the admissibility of the complaint at its next session in May 2008.

Zambia
Equality Now has been actively supporting a case involving the rape of a 13-year-old girl by her teacher. Two other teachers confirmed her allegations, and the girl’s aunt/guardian reported the incident to the school. The teacher admitted to having had sex with the girl but alleged it was consensual, and remarks reportedly made by the head teacher indicated that this was not the first such incident involving this teacher. The teacher went into hiding, and his parents tried to negotiate with the aunt, who refused and reported the matter to the police. The teacher was arrested but was released on bond and has not been prosecuted. As a result, the aunt consulted a lawyer she knew who agreed to handle the case pro bono as a civil matter. The girl is seeking damages from the teacher, the school, the Ministry of Education and has enjoined the Attorney General in the suit as the government legal advisor. They are seeking a declaration from the court that girls have the right to be protected when under the care of a teacher. The lawyer is also in touch with the Solicitor General regarding the criminal case.

Equality Now has met with the plaintiff and the law authorities. Advocacy around the case is being developed, including a possible Women’s Action on the failure of the Director of Public Prosecutions to prosecute.

Equality Now believes that the above cases would benefit from the support of the Adolescent Girls’ Legal Defense Fund while having a broad impact on promoting the rights of women and girls throughout the region. The estimated cost is $15,000/ case with $5,000 for litigation costs, $5,000 for local advocacy campaign initiatives, $5,000 for international advocacy campaign initiatives.

Advisory Board

Equality Now is building an advisory board for the Adolescent Girls’ Legal Defense Fund, of individuals able to guide the project and its strategies in a manner that is both culturally sensitive and strategically effective. Judith Bruce will chair the Advisory Board, on which Jane Fonda is serving together with a number of distinguished judges with experience in Africa and experts from the international human rights and women’s rights movements. Currently these include: Judge Navanethem Pillay (South African judge on the International Criminal Court), Elizabeth Evatt (former Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women- CEDAW), Judge Claire L’Heureux Dube (former Canadian Supreme Court justice who regularly does training of judges in African countries), Carolyn Makinson (Executive Director, Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children with Dale Buscher and Sandra Krause as alternates), Marianne Gimon (an independent consultant specialized in gender and international development) and Ann Graham (specialist in women�s philanthropy and currently a consultant to the United Nations).

A youth advisory council is also in development and is being led by a New York City high school student and our plaintiff in the Ethiopian case.

Conclusion

Focusing on specific cases of violence and discrimination against women and girls and building efforts around these cases to highlight issues of general concern has been an extremely effective way in which Equality Now has been able to support national initiatives in Africa and elsewhere. Equality Now believes that with the Adolescent Girls’ Legal Defense Fund we will foster an environment where laws that protect and promote the rights of women and girls are implemented and respected.

For more information, please contact Equality Now.

To inquire about contributing directly to the Adolescent Girls Legal Defense Fund, please contact Ms. Antonia Kirkland by email or by telephone at +1-212-586-0906.

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