Events

Strategy Consultation – Feminist Strategic Litigation in Francophone West Africa: The Role of Private Practice

The Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA) will convene a Strategy Consultation on Feminist Strategic Litigation in Francophone West Africa, aimed at exploring how feminist legal principles can be effectively integrated and applied within civil law systems.

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ISLA Conversations: Sexual Harassment and the Law: Race and Gender in the Mbenenge Tribunal

The Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA) is hosting a two-part conversation to discuss the intersection of race and gender in the Judicial Conduct Tribunal’s investigation into the conduct of Selby Mbenenge, the Judge President of the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court.

The Tribunal has highlighted the persistent issue of sexual harassment and its impact on women’s right to exist in the workplace. The Tribunal has also demonstrated how race and gender intersect in the portrayal of Black Women in courts, in legal proceedings, and in law. We have also witnessed how misogyny has become normalised, permeating the Tribunal and the commentary surrounding it.

We invite you to join us for a discussion to explore these critical themes and more.

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ISLA Violence Against Women Litigation Institute

The Institute will focus on feminist strategic litigation on Violence Against Women (VAW), with a particular emphasis on obstetric violence and women with disabilities. It aims to strengthen participants’ ability to litigate VAW cases and deepen their understanding of regional and international human rights mechanisms.

Time of Event (Start and End)
09:00 – 17:00 (Johannesburg time).

Online participants are welcome to join any sessions that interest them; full-day attendance is not required.

Register in advance for this meeting: REGISTER NOW

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

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The Public Reading of the African Union Convention on Ending Violence against Women and Girls

The adoption of a human rights treaty is often a historic moment and an important step in advancing the rights the treaty aims to address. It serves primarily as a legal instrument that establishes standards and creates obligations for states. While the CEVAWG has been celebrated as a progressive step in advancing the rights of women and girls, we have also noted significant gaps in its substance that may impede its ability to achieve its objectives.

The Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa, Fòs Feminista, and Akina Mama wa Afrika are jointly organising a strategy consultation designed for a comprehensive analysis of the Convention. Over the course of three days, feminist legal scholars, practitioners, and activists will examine the Convention in detail, reviewing it line by line and article by article to evaluate its progress and identify any gaps. The intended outcomes of this consultation are to generate recommendations and strategise ways to engage with the CEVAWG.

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No-Fault Divorce and the right to family life in Africa:
A conversation about the High Court of Kenya judgment in Coppler Attorneys’ and another v Attorney General of the Republic of Kenya and Another

Join us for a webinar exploring the implications of the legal requirement to prove fault on a party to a marriage before a court can grant an order for divorce on the right to found a family and the right to equality within a marriage and at divorce.

The webinar will reflect on (1) how the fault-based divorce law impacts on an individual’s autonomy to end a marriage, right to found a family and the right to equality. (2) The place of “family values” to resist gender progressive legal reform as used in the judgment (3) How the fault divorce law has been applied within the African States and (4) reimagine a future divorce law that does not have the requirement to establish fault in divorce proceedings.

The conversation shall be led by a panel of legal experts and gender justice advocates who will provide different perspectives on the inherent problems embedded on a fault-based divorce law and will provide possible avenues for legal reform and advocacy.

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The Implementation Gap – Discussing Article 14 of the CEVAWG and Civil Society Engagement

The Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA) is hosting a conversation to
discuss implementation gap in the newly adopted Convention on Ending Violence
against Women and Girls (CEVAWG/the Convention).

We are feminist lawyers dedicated to advancing feminist jurisprudence, and we are committed to holding states accountable for violations based on gender and sexuality. We express serious concern regarding Article 14 of CEVAWG, which designates the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) as the implementing and monitoring body for the Convention. This designation presents substantial challenges that directly undermine the Convention’s implementation. Entrusting an overstretched and structurally constrained institution with this critical mandate not only jeopardises the effectiveness of the CEVAWG—it risks crippling it by design and rendering it ineffective before it even takes root.

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Webinar on Out of Court
Settlement Agreements for VAW in Kenya

ISLA under its Litigation for Social Change (LSC) priority area undertook litigation seeking to have out of court settlements in Kenya, especially those orchestrated by the police, declared unconstitutional. In its judgment, the court issued a declaration that out-of-court settlement agreements in sexual violence cases resulting in the non-prosecution of those likely to be culpable are unconstitutional and should not be entered into by the police or otherwise except under the direction of the Director of Public Prosecutions while acting within the Constitution and the law.

We invite you to join our webinar on out of court settlement agreements for violence against women where we will unpack the judgment in HCCHRPET/E416/2021 – IW & CREAW v the Attorney General & Others and discuss the state due diligence obligations for VAW. Through this collaborative effort, we endeavor to not only raise awareness but also promote proactive discourse.

For further information, contact Achieng Orero, VAW Lawyer, achieng@the-isla.org

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EXPERT ADVISORY: LITIGATING OBSTETRIC VIOLENCE IN AFRICA: PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES

ISLA, in collaboration with KELIN and the Dullah Omar Institute—fellow members of the Bridging the Gap Coalition—is convening an Expert Advisory Meeting at ISLA Offices in Johannesburg, South Africa to advance legal responses to obstetric violence (OV) in Africa through a human rights and feminist lens.

This capacity strengthening meeting will convene a diverse group of stakeholders—including legal practitioners, academics, and researchers—with the aim of building a shared understanding of obstetric violence and collaboratively developing legal strategies grounded in established human rights frameworks.

The objectives of the meeting are to:

1. Clarify the legal conceptualisation of obstetric violence by developing a shared understanding of how obstetric violence is identified, named, and categorised across different contexts, and determining the extent to which these acts fall within the scope of legal definitions of obstetric violence.
2. Examine strategic litigation pathways to challenge and remedy obstetric violence, drawing on existing frameworks on VAW, SRHR, and medical negligence.
3. Develop a list of priority obstetric violence issues that are amenable to strategic litigation.
4. Learn how comparative systems have approached and experienced the development of obstetric violence litigation.
5. Learn about individuals and organisations that are litigating on obstetric violence with a view to developing collaborative relationships.
6. Identify and analyse the influence of anti-rights actors in obstructing legal recognition and redress for OV, if at all.

For further information, contact Emmah Wabuke at emmah@the-isla.org

In-depth Seminar on Due Diligence State Responsibility to end VAW.

The seminar will focus on specific strategic litigation cases on state responsibility to act with due diligence to prevent and effectively respond to VAW. ISLA and its partners have several cases raising similar issues including failure of the state to investigate, prosecute and punish VAW especially sexual violence cases. At this seminar lawyers will present the cases they are working on. The discussions will focus on the arguments made in the pleadings, the evidence presented and additional materials or research required. ISLA staff and experts comment on the pleadings for the purposes of providing substantive content that speaks to the legal provisions relied upon, comparative law and remedies. The participants are FLN network lawyers with cases related to due diligence or other actors interested in strategic litigation with such cases who have pleadings that can be analysed and further developed for filing.

For further information/expressions of interest to attend, contact Emmah Wabuke at emmah@the-isla.org

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Feminist Litigation Network(FLN) Litigation Institute on Violence Against Women

The substantive theme of this institute is due diligence state responsibility to prevent and effectively respond to VAW. This institute will be part 2 of the due diligence theme, continuing from the first VAW litigation  institute which introduced the principle of due diligence broadly. We will go deeper into practical ways of using strategic litigation in the context of the due diligence state obligation to enact laws to protect women from VAW, and specifically to address sexual violence and domestic violence. The feminist legal methods section of this institute will focus on raising consciousness about the impermanence of feminist victories, and how the feminist struggle is as much about securing legal victories as it is about refining strategies to defend the gains. The litigation institute will also include sessions on developing the FLN network, and a range of learning and development aspects including a moot court.

Participants are primarily FLN network lawyers. We will make available 2 or 3 slots for self-funded participants who experts, academics, researchers or lawyers working in the field that would like to join the institute.

For further information/expressions of interest to attend, contact Emmah Wabuke at emmah@the-isla.org

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Francophone West Africa Strategy Consultation

This consultation will focus on strategies for using strategic litigation to advance women’s rights in Francophone west Africa. It will include learning from experiences of doing strategic litigation in this context as well as a comparative analysis of how to develop feminist jurisprudence in the different legal contexts, i.e., common law vs civil law legal systems. This will be the third strategy consultation in Francophone west Africa, the previous two having focused on case sourcing, partnerships required to support strategic litigation and case development of strategic litigation cases specifically cases on women’s land and property rights. Participants will include ISLA staff and partners in Francophone west Africa who have worked on cases in this context, lawyers and experts with insights on the legal systems and legal culture of francophone west Africa.

For further information/expressions of interest to attend, contact Emmah Wabuke at emmah@the-isla.org

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Strategy Consultation on Obstetric Violence

The focus of this capacity strengthening is to discuss legal strategies on Obstetric Violence (OV) and how to anchor such litigation in human rights standards and feminist analysis. The  conversations will focus on how to intersect SRHR and VAW human rights frameworks to strengthen legal standards for protecting women from OV. We will also consider what kinds of legal mobilisaton strategies and partnerships are needed to strengthen the impact of strategic litigation on OV, and design practical next steps on what the collaborative work that follows the strategy consultation should look like. The consultation will be organised in collaboration with KELIN and Dullar Omar Institute, who together with ISLA are members of the Bridging the Gap Coalition. This consultation will provide an opportunity for stakeholders such as academics, activists, legal practitioners, researchers and feminists in the SRHR and VAW sectors to share their knowledge on their experiences of working on obstetric violence, and how to strengthen legal strategies. Participants include the diverse actors mentioned above. Due to limited resources only a limited number of participants can be fully funded to attend, however, 2 or 3 slots are available for self-funded individuals in these categories to attend.

For further information/expressions of interest to attend, contact Emmah Wabuke at emmah@the-isla.org

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Feminist Litigation Network Litigation Institute on Women’s Social Economic Rights

The theme of this institute will be economic justice, specifically protection of women’s rights in the world of work. We will unpack various manifestations of discrimination against women at work, especially in categories of work with limited legal protection or where women face intersecting discrimination. Sessions will include contextual analysis, analysis of human rights frameworks, comparative standards, and feminist legal questions on how to use strategic litigation as a method of challenging such discrimination expanding legal protection for women. Participants are primarily FLN network lawyers. We will make available 2 or 3 slots for self-funded participants who experts, academics, researchers or lawyers working in the field that would like to join the institute.

For further information/expressions of interest to attend, contact Emmah Wabuke at emmah@the-isla.org

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Re-writing African Judgements from Feminist Perspectives & LUC Platform Launch

We are launching the Let us Collaborate platform that seeks to simplify the process for women’s rights and sexual rights defenders in Africa to initiate, identify, engage, and partner in collaborative efforts on strategic litigation, research, advocacy and capacity strengthening initiatives. We will also have discussions on how better judgments can be provided or written differently from an African feministic standpoint. Discussants are members of the African Feminist Judgment Project.

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