The work of WJW and its partners revealed major flaws and shortcomings at every step of the justice process. Survivors are repeatedly failed and exposed to re-traumatization, leading to disillusionment with the system. 92% of women surveyed reported that they had less trust in the system after going through the...
Despite South Africa’s strong constitution, Domestic Violence Act, the Sexual Offences and Related Matters Act, and policy measures including the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide, women survivors of gender-based violence in the Western Cape described fundamental failures and almost insurmountable barriers to justice across every stage of the process. Whether it was the dismissive or hostile...
Our research showed that six systemic barriers to justice cut across every stage of the process:
1. Misconduct of officials Many survivors reported misconduct of police and judicial officials. Although national legal and policy frameworks explain the responsibility of officials in gender-based violence cases, survivors reported that these officials failed to meet their obligations during each stage of the justice...
Reporting an assault to the South African Police Service is the initial step for many survivors navigating the justice system. It is also the first point at which the system often fails, according to the survey conducted by WJW and its partners. A quarter of survivors surveyed said that the police never...
Legacies of colonialism and apartheid are among the key factors contributing to the high rates of gender-based violence in the Western Cape and to the way survivors who report their abuse are treated. The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, noted how South Africa is deeply influenced by its violent past characterized by divisions of...
A 22-year-old woman from Mamre, who wished to remain anonymous, had several difficulties when reporting her story to the police in 2020. She said she had been sexually assaulted by the perpetrator, but police doubted her narrative. A detective asked her if she had said “no” to her rapist, or even whether she was sure that she did not...
After CFJ Co-Founder George Clooney issued highly publicized calls for a boycott of hotels controlled by the Sultan of Brunei to protest new laws that would have allowed gay men to be stoned to death in Brunei, Brunei backed off on enforcement of the law.
CFJ participated in a landmark case before the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights to challenge Tanzania’s policy of expelling and banning married and pregnant girls from school. This policy impacts more than 1 in 4 Tanzanian girls who are either pregnant or married before the age of 18. After the case was initiated the government announced a reversal of...
In Nigeria, TrialWatch monitored the first case to be tried under the country’s draconian ‘Same Sex Marriage Prevention Act,’ which criminalizes direct or indirect “public show of same sex amorous relationship” with up to ten years imprisonment. While the case, brought against 47 men arrested at a hotel bar, was eventually struck out, TrialWatch reporting exposed its abusive nature.
Several...
In Russia, TrialWatch published a preliminary report on the case against LGBTQ+ activist Yulia Tsvetkova, after which she was acquitted. Ms. Tsvetkova, a 26-year-old women’s and LGBTQ+ rights activist from Siberia, was charged with pornography for posting artistic images of female genitalia as part of a body-positive women’s empowerment campaign and faced up to six years in prison.
Our report...
Evelyn Hernandez was prosecuted for aggravated homicide based on an obstetric emergency she suffered while giving birth. TrialWatch monitored her case, and she was ultimately acquitted. CFJ did not stop there and intervened in support of Salvadorian women more broadly in a landmark case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights challenging El Salvador’s prosecution of women who...
Polish LGBTQ+ rights activists who were prosecuted for depicting the Virgin Mary with a rainbow halo on posters had their acquittal upheld by an appeals court following TrialWatch monitoring and TrialWatch Expert Professor Lisa Davis giving the trial a grade of “D”. One of the activists, Anna Prus, told the Clooney Foundation for Justice they all felt compelled...
Evidence submitted by CFJ and Foro Penal in Venezuela will contribute to the first-ever ICC investigation in a Latin American country.
CFJ and Venezuelan human rights organization Foro Penal submitted a dossier of evidence to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to support investigations against crimes against humanity, torture, arbitrary detention and sexual abuse committed by...
Ugandan women’s rights activist Dr. Stella Nyanzi’s conviction was overturned on the basis of violations identified by a TrialWatch report submitted to a Ugandan appeals court.
Dr. Nyanzi was prosecuted for posting a poem critical of the Ugandan President on Facebook in a trial which TrialWatch monitored and graded a “D”.