A/HRC/22/32
45.
UN Women, in partnership with UNDP and UNICEF commissioned a study
launched in 2012, Informal Justice Systems: Charting a Course for Human Rights-Based
Engagement, which offers the first comprehensive assessment of informal justice systems
and human rights protection.
46.
In 2012, UN Women carried out a mapping of specialized training for judges and
lawyers on women’s human rights and gender equality issues, supported by the United
Nations system, with a view to identifying the extent and types of capacity-building
programmes and ascertaining good practices and lessons learned.
47.
UN Women has supported various capacity-building initiatives for judges,
magistrates, prosecutors, lawyers, paralegals and other legal actors in the formal and
informal justice sectors in various countries. The training initiatives have focused in
particular on sexual and gender-based violence, including during armed conflict, gender
equality in the workplace, women’s rights within the family and women’s access to justice,
including through transitional justice mechanisms.
48.
For instance, since 2009 UN Women has been implementing a three-year project on
women’s access to justice in conflict and post-conflict aimed at strengthening the rule of
law, justice and security in Uganda by supporting the justice law and order sector. UN
Women continues to work with the Ugandan justice law and order sector to inform the
existing manual on the prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence crimes. Key
activities include developing training materials for prosecutors, police and court staff on
gender-sensitive investigations and prosecutions; helping to develop gender-sensitive rules
of procedure building on international best practice and supporting the Office of the
Directorate of Public Prosecutions by building capacity for gender-sensitive prosecution.
49.
UN Women supported an intervention in Kosovo: the project “Women Building
Peace and Human Security in the Western Balkans: Implementing UN SCR 1325” focused
on working with security sector agencies, including the Kosovo Judicial Institute and the
Kosovo Judges Association. In respect of access to justice for survivors of violence, UN
Women supported two initiatives of the justice sector: engaging judges and prosecutors in a
dialogue on improved access to justice for women and training justice professionals on
women’s human rights provided by the Kosovo Judicial Institute.
50.
As part of a broader intervention in Albania on strengthening legal and institutional
frameworks, between 2007 and 2010, UN Women supported capacity-building initiatives
for judges and prosecutors on gender equality and women’s human rights. As a direct result
of the work, the School of Magistrates’ courses on family law, labour law, criminal law and
social assistance law have been revised to include gender equality and domestic violence
content as well as legal obligations of duty-bearers.
51.
In Kenya, UN Women supported the Kenya Women Judges Association in building
the capacity of judges, magistrates and kadhis to apply international and regional human
rights instruments in court decisions. With support from UN Women, a training manual was
developed by the association which is currently used by judicial officers and there are plans
to incorporate it into the judicial academy’s curriculum. One exemplary judgment that
followed the training was a case of inheritance in which the judge, referring to the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, ruled that a
girl child can inherit land, reversing a custom that would have precluded such inheritance.
52.
In Serbia, UN Women supported the development of educational modules on
women’s socioeconomic rights, gender-based discrimination and gender equality in the
workplace based on international and domestic law. In 2011, the modules were approved by
the Judicial Academy’s Program Council and are now included as an integral part of
mandatory Judicial Academy’s curriculum. In 2011, UN Women also supported
development of a pool of experts consisting of judges and gender advocates from academia
12
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