Justice systems around the world are failing women and girls, who too often face oppression and violence simply because they are women.
CFJ launched Waging Justice for Women in 2022 to tackle these challenges, providing free legal aid to women to defend their rights, including their right to be free from discrimination, child marriage, and violence.
Together with its on-the-ground partners, WJW works to:
- Challenge unjust laws before national, regional and international bodies and represent the women they impact
- Establish women-for-women legal aid clinics to empower women to advance their rights
- Fund and mentor the next generation of African gender justice champions through the annual Waging Justice for Women Fellowship
Did you know
CFJ is partnering with the Obama Foundation and the Gates Foundation to work towards ending child marriage.
We can combat the injustice that women face by ensuring that unfair laws are overturned and that those who abuse women are held to account.
International law provides an opportunity for real change, as almost all states have ratified treaties that require them to protect women’s rights. These rights can be enforced through national and regional courts, international courts, and UN bodies. But to access justice, women need legal advice and support.
Nearly every country has ratified treaties requiring them to protect women’s rights, which can be enforced through national and regional courts, international courts, and UN bodies. It only takes one strong case to set a legal precedent and to catalyze progress for women and girls. WJW and its partners use data and investigations to identify potential cases and challenge discriminatory laws in national and regional courts. Through public advocacy, we extend this fight beyond the courtroom, by working to strengthen existing laws and shine a light on ongoing abuses.
The high cost of legal representation means that very often women may not even know what their rights are — let alone how to advance under the law. Our clinics fill this gap by providing free legal services for marginalized women and girls. Staffed by women lawyers’ associations, they provide a venue where women can seek advice on issues like child marriage, gender-based violence, and economic discrimination.
WJW has partnered with the Women Lawyers’ Association in Malawi (WLA) to offer pro bono legal advice and representation to women and girls across the country. For over ten years, WLA has been a pioneer in defending women’s rights through volunteer legal support, and WJW is providing funding, technical assistance, and training to allow WLA to expand on its track record.
In 2024, WJW’s technical and substantive support helped WLA reach almost 7,000 people, providing a range of legal services including information, advice, and representation.
In partnership with the Fund for Global Human Rights’ Legal Empowerment Fund, the Waging Justice for Women Fellowship provides fully-funded work placements for one year to early-career African women lawyers at ten leading women’s rights or gender justice NGOs in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2023-2024, the inaugural year of the program, WJW Fellows waged justice in more than 230 women’s rights cases and provided free legal information to more than 1,000 women and girls through legal clinics and other community engagements with their host organizations. Fellows also receive mentorship, training, and access to a global network of legal experts – setting them up for successful careers and creating a thriving network of gender justice champions.
Read more about this year’s class of fellows here.
When survivors seek justice, they look for someone to give them hope that justice is possible. Amal gave me and many survivors hope that we will achieve justice.
Nobel Laureate and Sexual Violence Survivor
Justice for women is at the heart of CFJ’s work, including justice for women from marginalized backgrounds, women of color, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer women, and women with disabilities. Learn more about how CFJ is working with partners to investigate gender-based crimes, overturn regressive laws, and defend women on the frontlines of the fight for gender justice.
Our Issues
WJW targets five critical issues that disproportionately impact women and girls’ well-being and social and economic development throughout the course of their lives.
As of 2021, child marriage was still legal in well over 100 countries, and it continues to impact million girls in Africa alone. It has negative effects on women’s physical and mental health and growth and development — increasing the risk of teen pregnancy and often disrupting or ending their education. But governments have not risen to meet this challenge: more than 40 states in Africa do not fully outlaw child marriage, and efforts to combat the practice are vastly underfunded.
Waging Justice for Women is committed to changing this reality, through a strategy that combines legal reform, strategic litigation, and advocacy. WJW builds on the success of CFJ co-founder Amal Clooney, who uses her voice to amplify the issue on the global stage alongside partners like Girls Not Brides, Girls First Fund, the Gates Foundation, and the Obama Foundation’s Girls Opportunity Alliance. CFJ works with local partners to bring mobile legal clinics to remote child marriage “hot spots”, offering free legal advice to women and girls in need. Over the course of one year, WJW and the Women Lawyers’ Association of Malawi held 12 different clinics in remote communities across the country, reaching thousands of people in each community.
Survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) face immense barriers to accountability. In some countries, the law condones certain forms of GBV, like marital rape or violence against activists. In many others, survivors either cannot access the justice system or face stigma when they do report abuse. Despite staggering levels of violence, the conviction rate for GBV in most countries is in the single digits. WJW seeks to upend this culture of silence by advocating for stronger laws and challenging governments or corporations who fail to prevent and investigate GBV.
In Malawi, WJW and the Women Lawyers’ Association (WLA) provide guidance to GBV survivors through women-for-women legal aid clinics. In South Africa, WJW intervened as amicus curiae in a case brought by Women’s Legal Centre challenging provisions that prevent publicly naming individuals accused of rape or sexual offences before they have pleaded, which has silenced survivors and hinders anti-GBV activism.
WJW and its partners spoke to 127 survivors of GBV, family members of victims, and dozens of service providers, in South Africa’s Western Cape. Interviews with these survivors revealed fundamental failures and almost insurmountable barriers to justice across every stage of the process.
So-called ‘morality laws’ are used to police women’s behavior by criminalizing conduct such as dancing, wearing trousers, and engaging in consensual sexual activities outside marriage. In particular, authorities have applied them to control or intimidate women who criticize the government, like lawyers, journalists or human rights defenders. Building on CFJ’s track record of representing women who have been prosecuted for such crimes, WJW is working with partners to document how such laws are being weaponized against women and girls.
From unequal inheritance schemes that strip widows and daughters of their property to “head of household” laws that limit women’s ability to manage and administer assets, too many women do not have the same economic rights as men. This doesn’t just hold women back; it stunts the growth of entire economies. WJW seeks to collaborate with partners at the pan-African level to challenge such laws before regional courts and clarify what states must do to protect women’s economic rights, even within customary or religious systems.
Education is the leading factor in determining the development trajectory for women and girls, but more than a dozen African states have policies that restrict access to schooling for married or pregnant girls.
CFJ made a submission in a case filed by Equality Now and the Tanzania Women Lawyers’ Association to challenge Tanzania’s policy of banning married and pregnant girls from school before the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights. Following several regional cases and public pressure from other activists and lawyers, the Tanzanian Government – which deprived tens of thousands of schoolgirls of an opportunity to complete their education – reversed this discriminatory policy, demonstrating the impact that legal challenges may have in holding governments accountable.
