ICAAD recently consulted with the Solomon Islands Chief Justice and Chief Magistrate Emma Garo to discuss the latest TrackGBV data and advance recommendations. As a follow up to the meeting and at the request of the Chief Justice and Chief Magistrate, ICAAD prepared a memo on Improving Access to Justice in the Solomon Islands, and they went on to present at the July 2024 judges meeting. 

Some of the data we provided in the memo included the following:

• Despite political will to address gender inequality and high rates of gender-based violence (GBV) in the Solomon Islands, critical gaps remain. One of those gaps is justice sector service delivery unhindered by gender bias and stereotypes. 
• Though many sectors of government are involved in addressing GBV, a fair and unbiased judicial system is essential for victims/ survivors achieving accountability and redress in GBV cases. However, in many countries, including the Solomon Islands, judicial sentencing decisions based on biased reasoning, gender myths, and factors irrelevant to the perpetrator’s violent offending are all too common and interfere with the administration of justice. These factors are also out of step with regional and international best practices. 
• ICAAD’s TrackGBV program reveals the links between bias in judicial systems, limited access to justice, disproportionately low sentences in GBV cases, and the societal acceptance of GBV by analysing GBV sentencing decisions from 2000-2023. 
• In the Solomon Islands, GBV cases from 2015 to 2023, judicial officers raised gender stereotypes (e.g. victim-blaming) in sentencing in over 1 in 4 cases (26%). Additionally, the “sole breadwinner argument” was used to reduce sentences in over 1 in 3 (37.5%) domestic violence cases from 2015 to 2023. 
• The average sentence reduction due to contentious factors (gender stereotypes, customary practices, or other contentious factors) in cases similar to rape in the same time period was 1.7 years. 

From 8-10 May 2024, 20 representatives from SAFENET, the Solomon Islands gender-based violence (GBV) referral network, came together for a Train-the-Trainers program focused on how gender bias and discrimination manifest in the justice system and how to address this to better support victims/ survivors of GBV. 

The program, “TrackGBV Solomon Islands: Improving Access to Justice for Gender-based Violence Cases”, was facilitated by ICAAD and hosted by the Ministry for Justice and Legal Affairs (MJLA) and the Ministry for Women, Youth, Children, and Family Affairs (MWYCFA). This training was co-funded by the Clifford Chance Foundation, and lawyers from Clifford Chance LLP also contributed numerous pro bono hours to reviewing cases for the analysis and additional legal research.

At its core, TrackGBV monitors justice sector service delivery through technology and legal analysis to support capacity development for civil society and government agencies to improve outcomes for survivors. One of the TrackGBV initiatives is designed to improve access to justice for women and girls by revealing the court’s reliance on gender stereotypes, customary practices, and myths that undermine accountability and redress for survivors in GBV cases. The program features a public-facing TrackGBV Data Dashboard (“Dashboard”) which allows for greater transparency among the many stakeholders invested in the sentencing of GBV cases. 

Part I: Exploring the Data

In his opening remarks, Permanent Secretary for MJLA, George Hoa’au, shared:

“Data is very important in this day in age. We use it to measure what it is we must do. In the absence of data, it’s difficult to improve accountability, transparency, and consistency in the formal justice system.” 
In the first part of the training, participants workshopped new strategies for training teams on the concepts of gender, gender-based violence, and discrimination. They explored the broad human experience of survivors’ access to justice journey and dove into the latest Dashboard data for Solomon Islands, including the most recent 110 cases from 2021-2023 that have been analyzed and were uploaded to the TrackGBV Dashboard in May 2024. 

Key Data Insights

• In GBV cases from 2015 to 2023, judicial officers raised gender stereotypes (e.g. victim-blaming) in sentencing in over 1 in 4 cases (26%). 
• For example, the “sole breadwinner argument” was used to reduce sentences in 1 in 3 (33.3%) domestic violence cases from 2015 to 2023. 
• “First time offender” status often garners a high sentence reduction. In 2015-2023 cases in which the court applied this status, 24.3% of cases featured evidence of past violence that was never prosecuted.
• The average sentence reduction due to contentious factors (gender stereotypes, customary practices, or other contentious factors) in cases similar to rape in the same time period was 1.7 years.

This data and more can be found in our recent Policy Brief and on the Dashboard. 

Reviewing the data and placing it in the broader access to justice journey prepared participants to take a systems approach to the issue of GBV. 

As shared by one participant, Jimmy Mathew Masura (Immigration Officer, Human Trafficking): “This program really highlighted the different experiences faced by victims/ survivors of GBV in the courts. We should treat everyone the same, and I must be an advocate for equitable outcomes.” 

Part II: Developing Recommendations

In the second part of the training, participants developed a set of policy recommendations based on the TrackGBV and their own insights across the SAFENET. The cohort’s recommendations were shared with key stakeholders.

Participants highlighted the need for safety, non-discrimination, human rights, survivors’ needs, confidentiality, respect, and trust to underpin the sentencing of GBV cases. Some of the recommendations include (full set available in the Policy Brief): 

• Develop a Sentencing Bill with specific guidelines for sentencing ranges for gender-based violence offences (rape, domestic violence, etc.). 
• Eliminate the use of gender stereotypes in sentencing, particularly victim-blaming and myths that result in gender-based discrimination when applied in mitigation. 
• Eliminate the use of the sole breadwinner argument as a mitigating factor in GBV cases given the After Care Support for Prisoners’ Families offered by the Social Welfare Division.
• Increase funding to the Social Welfare Division to meet the needs of families of prisoners through the After Care Support for Prisoners Families program and ensure survivors and their families are made aware of this support. 
• In cases in which the sole breadwinner faces a custodial sentence, judges should advise victims/ survivors of the support available to them from Social Welfare. 
• Clearly define first-time offender status, so that this mitigating factor is not applied when there is evidence or credible testimony to indicate that there was a previous pattern of offending. 
• Eliminate the use of customary practices (example reconciliation and compensation) as a mitigating factor in GBV cases. 
• Build the capacity of health and legal professionals to handle, present, and interpret medical evidence in GBV cases through a medico-legal train-the-trainers program. 

Almost every participant increased their motivation and sense of efficacy in their efforts to increase access to justice for victims/ survivors of GBV. Participants were also eager for SAFENET data to be centralized to allow members to identify weak links in the access to justice journey and to highlight areas that need additional resourcing. 

The Chief Legal Policy Officer, Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs Legal Policy Unit, Kyla Venokana, shared, “This training helped me understand the final stage of the access to justice journey for reported cases. It was really interesting to learn the TrackGBV methodology for reviewing cases. This learning will undoubtedly support our legal policy reform work on GBV legislation.”

ICAAD’s Director and Change Facilitator, Erin Thomas, who facilitated the training, shared: “It was really exciting to facilitate such an energised group. It goes to show how engaged the SAFENET partners are. There is a lot of momentum here for change across sectors. If key decision makers heed these evidence-based recommendations, we will have taken a massive step towards improving access to justice in the Solomon Islands.”

Participants represented the following organizations and agencies: 

• Ministry for Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs
• Honiara City Council
• Ministry for Justice and Legal Affairs
• National Referral Hospital 
• Seif Ples
• Social Welfare Division 
• Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions
• Hope Trust
• Ministry of Commerce, Industry, Labour, and Immigration
• Solomon Islands Planned Parenthood Association

Thanks to your steadfast support, we are making significant strides toward enhancing justice sector service delivery for victims of GBV.

In our most recent mission, ICAAD Co-Founders, Jaspreet Singh and Hansdeep Singh, embarked on a pivotal visit to Grenada as consultants for UN Women's Spotlight Initiative. This trip was instrumental in conducting a comprehensive assessment to identify gaps in service delivery for survivors of domestic violence and sexual offenses. Our engagements with members of the justice sector, along with leading civil society organizations and foundations, have laid a strong foundation for our continued efforts to support women, girls, and the LGBTQ+ community in the region.

We will be heading back to Grenada later in March with a team from a prestigious university to further explore where crucial gaps can be better addressed.

Deepening Connections and Identifying Gaps

Our work in Grenada is part of an ambitious expansion of our gender justice project in the Caribbean, building on our initiatives in Jamaica and Barbados. Through our extensive discussions with stakeholders in Grenada, we are beginning to uncover the multifaceted barriers that victim/survivors of domestic and sexual violence face, and to make recommendations as to how service delivery can be improved. 

As we move forward, our focus will remain on leveraging data insights and providing comprehensive legal, advocacy, and policy support. Our goal is to work collaboratively with our partners in Grenada and across the region to dismantle the barriers to justice for victims/survivors of GBV. This collaborative effort is crucial in our quest to create a safer, more just environment for women, girls, and the LGBTQ+ community.

Gratitude for Your Support

Your generous support has been instrumental in enabling us to scale this vital project, ultimately benefiting millions of women and girls. As we continue to make progress in Grenada and beyond, we remain deeply grateful for your commitment to standing with us in this fight against gender-based violence. 

We are inspired by the potential for transformative change that our collective efforts can achieve. We look forward to keeping you updated on our continued progress and the impact of your support.

ICAAD meeting with Sweetwater Foundation

Our work tackling gender-based violence has officially kicked off in Grenada!

ICAAD Co-Founders Jaspreet Singh and Hansdeep Singh recently visited the country as consultants for UN Women's Spotlight Initiative. The trip included conducting an assessment of gaps in service delivery for domestic violence and sexual offense survivors, as part of our work supporting women and girls in the Caribbean. 

In Grenada, ICAAD met with members of the justice sector as well as leading civil society organizations and foundations working to tackle gender-based violence. Over the coming months, we will continue to deepen connections with key stakeholders as we work together to identify where gaps in access to justice for women, girls and the LGBTQ+ community exist – and how those gaps can be addressed. 

This visit was part of the expansion of our gender justice project in the Caribbean, after starting similar work in Jamaica and Barbados. Through our engagement in the region thus far, we have seen that there are numerous barriers to justice for victim/survivors of domestic and sexual violence – ranging from lack of victim anonymity to difficulties seeking protection orders.

We will continue to leverage data insights alongside legal, advocacy and policy support as we work with partners in Grenada and the region to combat gender-based violence. 

Your support has directly helped us scale this project to benefit millions of women and girls – thank you!

ICAAD meeting with High Court Chief Registrar

ICAAD meeting with GrenCHAP 

This summer, ICAAD supported our partner, Fiji Women's Rights Movement (FWRM), at their weeklong Regional Feminist Learning Convening.

At the convening, we supported the training of 14 amazing feminists, activists, human rights defenders, community trainers, legal practitioners and more from six Pacific Small Islands Developing States – all of whom play a key role in promoting gender equality and human rights.

The first part of the workshop covered gender sensitisation and gender analysis tools designed to strengthen awareness, knowledge and technical skills on gender analysis, gender responsive planning and budgeting. The second part of the workshop focused on ending violence against women.

Participants were trained in understanding the nature of sexual harassment on Pacific women, the social construction of gender, law and monitoring frameworks, and the barriers that discriminate against women. ICAAD’s Director + Change Facilitator Erin Thomas facilitated a session on the sexual harassment zero-draft policy, and ran a workshop on our TrackGBV Dashboard. 

“The session on [the] TrackGBV Dashboard was a great resource tool. It shows the data on the issues of sexual harassment in each of the countries in the Pacific and the data on the legal processes – it gives me the push I need when creating sexual harassment policy and how I can be able to somehow help in a way with the legal process of it to be transparent and accountable. All in all, it was a very educational and informative 5 days. This training will help me as a journalist to stay on top of issues and report on them accordingly and so do justice to the victims of sexual harassment”, said a participant from the Solomon Islands.

We are thrilled to collaborate in bringing this work to the region and ensure advocates are supported to make sure workplaces are safe for women and girls across the Pacific.

We will continue working with our partners like FWRM to strengthen capacities of women in the region – and we thank you for your support! Because of your generosity, we are able to build stronger and more resilient movements.

We're excited to announce that our TrackGBV: Pacific Islands Country Reports are now available on our website. These reports provide key information about gaps in access to justice and can be used by civil society, judiciaries, and the Ministry of Justice to improve legal protections and ensure accountability and consistency in judicial decision-making. 

The reports summarize an evidence base of over 20 years of case law that tracks the patterns and impacts of biased decision-making by the courts for cases involving gender-based violence (GBV). They dive deep into the trends displayed on the TrackGBV Dashboard, an interactive tool for stakeholders launched by ICAAD in 2021. The Dashboard is the only comprehensive source of this information in the region and includes data from Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu, from 2000-2021. 

The data shows that nearly 80% of cases involving GBV in Pacific Island Countries raised some form of bias in sentencing decisions, with a quantifiable discriminatory impact on over 50% of cases. These contentious factors, which include gender stereotypes, rape myths, and customary practices, makes clear that access to justice is a major obstacle for victim/survivors of GBV. 

“Despite the pervasiveness of GBV, only a small percentage of GBV cases make it to court, and even then, the outcomes are impacted by bias and discrimination. We wanted to understand exactly which factors are contributing to a culture of impunity for perpetrators in order to help our partners advocate more effectively for change,” said Erin Thomas, ICAAD Director and Change Facilitator. 

Key Findings from the Regional Report:

• Victims/ survivors who come before the courts are typically between the ages of 6 and 17, pointing to the need for support for children and youth as they access the justice sector.
• In court proceedings, contentious factors (ie. gender stereotypes, customary factors, rape myths, privileging the perpetrator over the survivor) were raised in nearly 80% of cases, with a quantifiable impact on sentencing in over 50%. 
• In cases with charges similar to rape, sentences were on average ⅓ shorter when contentious factors were raised.
• The most common procedural barriers to consistency and accountability were: lack of medical reports, misapplication of the first time offender status, and lack of victim anonymity.

Despite progress in some countries on reducing judicial bias and improving access to justice for women and girls, TrackGBV reveals notable gaps for judiciaries across the region. ICAAD has been working closely with civil society organizations, judges, and the legal community to train them on how to use the Dashboard to help address these gaps. This collaboration has already helped inform both legislative and judicial change in the region. 

While this data is specific to the Pacific Islands region, it nonetheless offers lessons for access to justice on a global scale – pointing to patterns and trends that may well exist in other countries with similar legal and judicial systems. ICAAD is currently scaling TrackGBV to the Caribbean to continue supporting access to justice and gender equity worldwide. 

The UN estimates that it will take nearly 300 years to achieve gender equality. We aim to improve access to justice for survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) by strengthening elements of the justice system, including healthcare systems and the courts, that are currently undermined by gender bias and discrimination. 

In order to do this, we focus on increasing access to information and data literacy so that our local partners are armed with evidence to support their advocacy. Limited access to information is a barrier to accountability in the justice sector, and makes it difficult to identify where systemic discrimination exists.

In Jamaica, with our partner Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ), we recently co-designed a retrospective analysis project which supports data literacy. JFJ, as one of the leading CSOs in the country, collected intake forms from several local CSOs, redacted sensitive information, and transferred it to ICAAD for analysis. We then created a methodology to identify where gaps in service delivery for GBV survivors were occurring by taking the qualitative intake data and converting it to quantitative data.

The project is just the beginning of a pilot program that will seek to unlock CSO and government data in the Caribbean. Expanding TrackGBV in the region will help provide accessible information about how bias and discrimination impact the user experience of GBV victims as they interact with the judiciary, healthcare services, and law enforcement. Armed with data, CSOs and governments will be able to work towards a common goal of strengthening access to justice through better service delivery.

Last month, the ICAAD team travelled to Jamaica to expand our efforts to tackle gender-based violence (GBV) in the country and region.

Our TrackGBV project has been a key focus for the past nine years in the Pacific. By identifying bias and discrimination in judicial decision-making, the dashboard has facilitated advocacy for more consistent and equitable decision-making. With data from over 2500 cases from nine Pacific Island Countries, it has already helped to support judicial and legislative change.

Following requests from non-profit partners, we are now scaling this work to the Caribbean – beginning with a focus on building strong local partnerships with civil society and government while analyzing key metrics for service delivery in the justice sector. Across the region, rates of GBV are high and heavily underreported, and systems are in dire need of resources and reform.

In Jamaica, ICAAD Co-Founders Hansdeep Singh and Jaspreet Singh met with dozens of stakeholders to support transparency, consistency, and accountability within the justice system by leveraging the law, data, design justice, and advocacy.

Hansdeep commented on the visit: “We had a host of productive meetings in Jamaica with our partners as we discussed the many challenges that GBV survivors face while trying to access justice in the country – whether through resource constraints, institutional barriers, outdated legislation, or discriminatory practices. We look forward to continuing our work with all our partners to co-create projects that can address these gaps and build more equitable systems.”

Jaspreet and Hansdeep of ICAAD with Tracy Robinson, Professor of Law at UWI-Mona and previously Commissioner on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and Rapporteur on the Rights of Women for the OAS.

Barbados Supreme Court

ICAAD recently traveled to Jamaica and Barbados to build partnerships, hear from local, regional, and international stakeholders, and co-create programs seeking to combat gender-based violence (GBV) in the Caribbean region. 

In over 30 meetings in two weeks, we learned of the immense challenges women and girls face in their journey to access justice, and the gaps that exist at every level. Some of the gaps identified rise from laws that are the vestiges of colonial British rule and have not been updated, while others stem from a lack of resources to combat GBV and from traditional mindsets rooted in patriarchy.

For example, healthcare providers do not regularly document signs of abuse, and are not required to do so unless dealing with children. Furthermore, there are few, if any, nurses or doctors properly trained in forensics dealing with sexual assault, which is a major gap in the prosecution of rape cases. Basic processes like seeking a protection order after facing domestic violence can also be incredibly challenging, with unnecessary barriers sometimes placed in the process by court clerks themselves.

Additionally, girls in Barbados and Jamaica, who are sometimes victims of abuse at home themselves and are trying to escape that abuse, are still being put into juvenile facilities for “wandering” or being “uncontrollable.” The facilities they are placed in have deplorable conditions, have standards of discipline and care that would violate international human rights norms while receiving inadequate education and nutrition. 

In addition to other partnerships we are continuing to build, in Jamaica, we are partnering with both government and civil society in building capacity for the dissemination of newly passed sexual harassment legislation, working to build stronger data analytics around GBV, and assisting in ground breaking litigation challenging rulings that threaten women and girls when it comes to protective orders and arbitrary arrests. 

In addition to women’s rights organizations, legal bar associations, and international bodies like UN Women, we met with members of the judiciary, police, departments of prosecution, and health ministries. Stay tuned for more updates as TrackGBV Caribbean gains momentum.

Hansdeep and Jaspreet of ICAAD with the Jamaica Bar Association

Over the last few months, we have been building on our completed virtual TrackGBV Train-the-Trainers intensive program with participants from the Ombudsman’s Office and Ministry of Justice in Samoa. The training featured the latest TrackGBV data from Samoa which can be explored in our recently launched TrackGBV Dashboard. 

The case law analysis shows that in Samoa between 2014 and 2020, contentious factors like gender stereotypes, customary practices, or other contentious factors were used to reduce perpetrators’ sentences in over 1 in 2 GBV sentencing decisions.

Samoa Train-the-Trainers program affinity mapping session

Check out what one of our participants, the Director of Human Rights at Samoa’s Office of the Ombudsman/National Human Rights Institutions, Loukinikini Vili, had to say about TrackGBV and the Train-the-Trainers program:

Vili shared, “the training not only showed us information about the trends in sentencing decisions, but it definitely got us thinking about a lot of things. Some of them include, what was the judge thinking when they gave the decision or what type of information was provided to the judge that influenced their decision?”

“When we were analyzing some of Samoa’s gender-based violence sentencing decisions, we were also able to identify and discuss different gender biases and discrimination and how patriarchy and toxic masculinity in Samoa drive gender-based violence.”

Another participant, Faagutu Vaalotu, from the Ministry of Justice shared that, “this training has refreshed my thinking about ways to improve the way we work. I think there’s a lot of areas we need to look closely at.” 

Vaalotu explained that TrackGBV fills some of the gaps they have from not having an integrated electronic case management system. She adds, “We have the challenge of not having an integrated electronic case management system. With the case analysis from TrackGBV, that really puts the alarming picture of what’s happening out there. That sort of approach is very effective in driving this message, especially if it’s the judiciary that’s handing down the decisions.”

We have been working with the cohort to plan this year’s advocacy strategy for judicial policy reform as well as more trainings for other stakeholders. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue sharing the TrackGBV Dashboard with stakeholders around the Pacific region. 

Links:

Listen to Loukinikini Vili, Director of Human Rights at Samoa’s Office of the Ombudsman/National Human Rights Institutions

On November 29, we launched the TrackGBV Data Dashboard with a panel event with four leading gender justice advocates. The Dashboard visualizes the review of 3,500+ cases from across the Pacific region tracking gender bias and discrimination in gender-based violence (GBV) sentencing decisions. By making judicial decision-making more transparent, the TrackGBV Dashboard facilitates training and advocacy for more consistent and equitable decision-making. The Dashboard is made possible with support from our partners Clifford Chance, Manatt, Linklaters, Conduent, and Tableau. 

The event panelists included:

• Justice Jacqueline Cornelius, High Court Judge, Barbados
• Loukinikini Vili, Director of Human Rights, Samoa Office of the Ombudsman/ NHRI
• Teresa Lifuka-Drecala, Executive Director, Tuvalu Family Health Association (TuFHA)
• Laisa Bulatale, Gender and Transitional Justice Programme, Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM)

The panelists spoke to the process of building TrackGBV and what ICAAD has been able to do even before the launch TrackGBV Dashboard. They also shared about how ICAAD’s trainings have been effective in building momentum in shifting mindsets and paving the way for policy reform. While challenges remain in smaller states in the Pacific and places where access to case law is sparse, the program will continue building the data set and working with grassroots advocates and judiciaries to ensure access to justice for all survivors. TrackGBV started in the Pacific, but we also heard from Barbados High Court Justice Jacqueline Cornelius about plans for expanding TrackGBV to the Caribbean. 

The Dashboard is live and available to anyone to explore the current data available. At this stage, we have data for Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Samoa. We will be including data for Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Marshall Islands, and Nauru in the coming months as well as adding additional features. 

Dear friends,

Over the past six months, in addition to creating partnerships and conducting the research necessary to scale the TrackGBV program to the Caribbean, we’ve been working on a training program for TrackGBV. We’re very excited to share that next month, we’ll begin our TrackGBV Train-the-Trainers program in Samoa with representatives from the Ministry for Women, Community, and Social Development, and Office of the Ombudsman and Samoa's National Human Rights Institution. We’ll be meeting virtually for seven weeks to prepare the cohort to train other key stakeholders in Samoa.

We’re also thrilled to share that GlobalGiving’s Project of the Month Club selected TrackGBV from a pool of more than 5,000 nonprofit projects in 170+ countries as their Project of the Month. The program will award $10,000 to ICAAD, and over the next 11 months, we will receive an additional portion of funds the Club raises. We also received an additional $10,000 from the Airbnb + GlobalGiving Community Fund. The program invited Airbnb hosts to help decide how to distribute the Community Fund to GlobalGiving projects, and TrackGBV was one of their picks.

Over the next three months, we will be adding several countries to our TrackGBV Data Dashboard for the Pacific Islands. Thanks to your support, we have been able to develop TrackGBV and analyze gender bias and discrimination in over 5,000 sentencing decisions in the region. Now, it’s time for us to scale.

Over the last few years, we have been exploring the possibility of scaling TrackGBV to Latin America and the Caribbean. We have spoken with stakeholders in Chile, Belize, Barbados, Jamaica, and Grenada. As we have begun to share our work with local human rights and women’s rights organizations, our work has garnered the interest of the UN Women’s regional Caribbean office. They have long recognized the need for judicial reform to improve access to justice for women and girls, and our preliminary conversations suggest we will be strong partners in the movement for gender justice. We recently applied for their call for proposals, which focuses on:

Grenada

Implementing culture-based approaches to deliver messaging targeting the judiciary and their treatment of victims or perpetrators in the administration of justice for family violence related crimes and incidents. Understanding the challenges in the application of sentencing guidelines and how this also leads to the need for second prevention interventions.

Jamaica

Strengthening and expanding gender-responsive administration of justice through law enforcement and the judiciary to improve capacity to investigate and prosecute cases of violence against women and girls, including family violence, and to enforce court orders in a sensitive and timely manner. Additionally, to focus on research looking at court user experience with family violence (intimate partner violence especially protection order application, and child abuse).

Regardless of whether or not we are selected, we will be expanding TrackGBV to the Caribbean as a result of your support. By working to build the capacity of the judiciary, we aim to create an environment where the future analysis of GBV decisions is not constrained by resource limitations. We will continue this critical work of ensuring that the judiciary is a place where victims/ survivors are not retraumatized, where their testimony is not minimized, and where justice and accountability can be achieved.

Dashboard Testing

Over the past month, we began beta testing our data analytics dashboard, which will soon be publicly available and populated with data from over 5,000 GBV cases from 12 Pacific countries. At the moment, we are conducting user research and iterating the design and features with our team and partner organizations, to ensure advocates are able to benefit from using data in their efforts for gender equity and access to justice. 

TrackGBV at the Fiji Women’s Law Association Continuing Legal Education Workshop 

On February 10th, we presented virtually at a panel workshop run by the Fiji Women’s Law Association and Fiji Women’s Rights Movement on gender stereotypes in sexual offence cases. The discussion focused on some of the persistent challenges in gender-based violence (GBV) cases in Fijian courts including victim-blaming and judicial stereotyping as well as the progress made to date. We shared our latest TrackGBV data for Fiji including the prevalence of contentious factors like gender stereotypes in cases and change over time.

Looking at Fiji, we see major strides taken over the last decade or so including new legislation in 2009, directives aimed at improving equity in GBV cases in 2018, and judicial training. Fiji also makes publicly available the highest percentage of case law related to GBV in the region which is a great first step towards transparency and accountability. For the TrackGBV program, this means that we were able to analyze 809 GBV cases from the magistrate courts, High Court, Supreme Court, and Court of Appeals, from 2000-2018.

To see the latest data from Fiji, check out our Comparative Report on the Impact of Gender Stereotyping on Judicial Decisions in Violence Against Women Cases Across the Pacific Islands Region. 

Preliminary Samoa Data

As we’ve shared before, we will be running our Train the Trainers program with the Samoa Ministry of Justice later this year. As a part of this training, we are collating the data from 282 gender-based violence cases from Samoa over the period of 2000-2020. This week, we completed pieces of the preliminary analysis which we can share here. This type of data will soon be available for all 12 Pacific countries on our data analytics dashboard.

First-time Offender Status

We found a higher rate of the inappropriate use of first-time offender status where credible testimony, medical evidence, or police reports indicated past evidence of violence, even if there was no previous conviction. In cases between 2000-2012, first-time offender status was misapplied in 13.9% of cases, and between 2013-2020, it was misapplied in 20% of cases. 

Medical Reports

The importance of medical reports in GBV cases cannot be understated and goes directly to preserving evidence of the severity of a crime, which would likely influence sentencing outcomes. Medical reports were only used in 32.3% of cases overall, and only 28.9% of sexual violence cases. 

While we have yet to compile the data on contentious factors which point to gender bias and discrimination, the preliminary data indicates that there will be much to share with the Samoa Ministry of Justice to improve accountability and access to justice. 

FWLA Continuing Legal Education Workshop, Feb 10

We are pleased to announce that TrackGBV is expanding to Latin America and the Caribbean. In the coming months we will be conducting strategic assessments and pilot case law analysis in multiple countries in the region, as well as partnering with local governments and organizations. 

We have already started working with United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM) to conduct a needs assessment, outreach to the Supreme Court, and to connect with local grassroots activists to better understand the access to justice barriers in Belize.

Dashboard Development

We have begun development of the interactive data dashboard for TrackGBV. Combined with case law analysis of 5,000 cases in 12 countries across the Pacific, the dashboard will provide valuable data to advocates and judiciaries across the region. The database and dashboard are being designed and tested with users in the Pacific. 

Example: Data on inclusion of medical reports

Train the Trainers Program

We are currently developing a Train the Trainers program for TrackGBV alongside pro bono lawyers at Clifford Chance. The program will cover the foundations of gender discrimination, including: defining gender-based violence (GBV) and related concepts; GBV’s connection to bias, myths, stereotypes; and specific customary practices. The program will also provide the preliminary regional and country-specific TrackGBV data from ICAAD’s case law analysis as well as an overview of legislation and policies related to domestic violence and sexual offences. The result of the training will be that participants will have the tools needed to identify gaps in judicial decision making regarding GBV cases and can use these tools to suggest reform. The training is being developed at the request of the Ministry of Justice in Samoa.

The Commonwealth Equality & Justice Forum 2020 was hosted by the Royal Commonwealth Society and brought together over fifty Equality & Justice Alliance programme partners, Government officials, civil society leaders and legal experts to share experiences on reforming discriminatory laws in different Commonwealth countries.

At the Forum, which ran from Feb. 12-14, ICAAD launched and presented a new report, A Comparative Legal Review of the Impact of Gender Stereotyping on Judicial Decisions in Violence Against Women Cases Across the Pacific Island Region. The report was authored by ICAAD, and was commissioned and edited by Sisters for Change as part of its work under the Equality & Justice Alliance Programme to reform laws that discriminate against women and girls and LGBT people across the Commonwealth.
 

Hansdeep Singh and Jaspreet Singh, ICAAD Co-Founders with Jane Gordon and Ali Gordon, Co-Founders of Sisters for Change
 

The report analyzes the development of international and regional standards and jurisprudence on State obligations to eliminate gender bias and stereotyping. It also identifies case studies of good practice from Commonwealth jurisdictions including Canada, Fiji, Namibia, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, which have produced pioneering case law and domestic legislation explicitly targeting gender bias. Finally, the report examines the scope of gender-based violence against women and girls in the Pacific Island Region and provides an in-depth analysis of the impact of gender bias and stereotyping on judicial decisions in violence against women across seven countries in the Commonwealth Pacific Island Region – Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Kiribati.
 

Read the Report

Jaspreet Singh Presenting on the Impact of Bias on Judicial Sentencing in GBV Cases
 
 
The Conference included wide-ranging stakeholders in both civil society and government. Moreover, the President of Seychelles Danny Faure met with all the delegates from the Annual Forum and pledged that his country would reform its discriminatory laws this year.

By Hansdeep Singh - Co-Founder, Director of Legal Programs

TrackGBV Update: Analysis of 5,000 GBV cases in 12 Pacific Island Countries (PICs) has begun.

• Linklaters - is the lead law firm coordinating the analysis
• Manatt Phelps - a team of lawyers from Manatt will be added in October 2018 following analysis of the initial pilot set and refinement of methodology
• Conduent - working with our data science partner to seamlessly onboard partner law firms
• Next step - identifying a tech partner to assist with building out effective data visualizations for all of the information being analyzed from the cases

Global Transformation towards Gender Equality and Agenda 2030: A conversation about innovative approaches to break the cycle of violence against women

ICAAD was invited to present at the Global Transformation conference, which was hosted by the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights & Humanitarian Law (Sweden), American University Washington College of Law (USA), Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria (South Africa), and Red Latinoamericana de académico/as del Derecho, with support of the Swedish Embassy in Mexico City.

Jaspreet Singh, ICAAD Co-Founder, presented and chaired the panel on: Case Studies on SGBV: Research Methodologies and Perspectives from the Field.

The presentation was specifically on Analysis of Judicial Sentencing Practices in GBV Cases in the Pacific Island Region. It included a discussion of how cases were analyzed and the impact of advocacy resulting from the project, as well as the potential to replicate the methodology in other jurisdictions.

Check out the presentation here.

Fijian Judiciary Consults with ICAAD to Improve Access to Justice
By Jaspreet Singh - Co-Founder, ICAAD

Hon. CM Ratuvili with the ICAAD Team in Nov. 2017

ICAAD has built credibility with the Fijian Judiciary over 5 years through rule of law trainings, publication of reports centered on judicial bias, and direct engagement with both the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Chief Magistrate, and Chief Registrar of the Family Courts. ICAAD recently got confirmation from the Judiciary that 3 directives (authoritative instructions) ICAAD created have been disseminated to all Magistrate judges in the country.

The directives will help improve access to justice for women facing violence:

• Judges should not reduce a sentence in gender-based violence (GBV) cases based on the belief that the respondent is a first time offender if there is credible testimony, medical evidence, or police reporting that indicates past evidence of violence, even without a previous conviction.
• Magistrates should not order both parties to attend joint counselling in GBV cases. There is a presumption against pushing for reconciliation in domestic violence civil proceedings and that reconciliation is not applicable in domestic violence criminal proceedings.
• When a women seeks an Interim Domestic Violence Restraining Order, Magistrates should inform both parties separately that they should seek Legal Aid. Further, the Court should make clear that if one party obtains Legal Aid's services first, the other party is not barred from obtaining assistance because Legal Aid can refer conflicting cases out to law firms.

Thanks to Chief Justice Gates, Chief Magistrate Ratuvili, and Scot Fishman of Manatt for their support in this endeavor. 

PACIFIC ISLAND REGION: TrackGBV Update

TrackGBV is a program to provide data and analysis on GBV cases and increase transparency, consistency, and accountability of the justice systems in Pacific Island Countries. The legal database for TrackGBV has been completed by our tech and data science partner, Conduent. Besides creating a user-friendly database to conduct legal analysis, the Conduent and ICAAD team have been working to develop machine learning algorithms that can assist in making the analysis more efficient.

Furthermore, the analysis of 5000 GBV cases has begun thanks to pro bono partner law firm Linklaters. As we scale up the project, we anticipate bringing on 3-4 other major law firms from the U.S., U.K., and Australia. Also, with the upcoming publication of our Sentencing Handbook on GBV produced with the assistance of Clifford Chance (London), we will be positioned to disseminate the Handbook to judges and civil society advocates throughout the region and conduct further trainings.

ICAAD’s Data Continues to Make an Impact on Access to Justice

Over the past 5 years, ICAAD has advanced data-driven justice for gender based violence. We’ve also helped collect data on the efficacy of legal mechanisms, healthcare, and access to basic services like water and sanitation.
 
More recently, our tools and methodologies have been increasingly adopted to advance the work of local and regional institutions, such as Nazdeek in India, and the Fiji Women's Rights Movement (FWRM) in Fiji and the regional Pacific Judicial Strengthening Initiative (PJSI), an initiative of the Federal Courts of Australia.

In the recently released report stemming from Nazdeek and ICAAD’s joint data collection initiative SMS for Justice, grievance mechanisms were tested by community paralegals to resolve complaints coming through the platform. The report, “Women Lead the Way: Monitoring and improving government services and facilities in Delhi,” showed that some mechanisms worked well for resolving complaints, such as the Delhi Water Board line, which responded quickly to the need for water.

Others which did not work as well highlighted the need for better redressal mechanisms, gaps in services, and the need to continue to refine processes to ensure better outcomes.

Nazdeek and ICAAD’s work was recently recognized at the Reimagining Justice: Realizing Human Rights through Legal Empowerment conference held by the Robert L. Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at NYU, where Nazdeek co-founder Jayshree Satpute presented on the SMS for Justice and End MM Now initiatives in Delhi and Assam.

In the Pacific region, PJSI, who works on delivery of judicial trainings to judges in 20 countries, suggested using ICAAD’s data as a baseline for further assessments in its Gender and Family Violence Toolkit. In its Human Rights Toolkit, PJSI states that ICAAD’s “study shows how values that undermine women’s right to equal protection of the law can also be ingrained in judicial thinking, suggesting that this might be an area where specific judicial training and guidance could be helpful.

In its report, Balancing the Scales: Improving Fijian Women's Access to Justice, FWRM adapted ICAAD’s methodology to review rape and sexual assault judgments in the High Court and Magistrate Courts for 2016 and 2017. The aim of FWRM’s report is to “further inform law reform in this area and improve women and children’s access to the formal justice system."
 
In the coming months, we’ll be launching the first ever Sentencing Handbook on gender based violence for the Pacific Region. This Handbook will inform the analysis that underpins the TrackGBV database, where lawyers will analyze 5,000 cases and provide data from across 12 countries in the Pacific to promote judicial transparency and accountability. None of this happens without your continued support! To continue to support ICAAD initiatives, click here.

The Sikh community has stood against inequality innumerable times in history, and we must continue today to actively defy bigotry and violence directed at vulnerable communities. The struggle for justice and equality is unyielding, and, thanks to the support of the Dasvandh Network community in 2017, ICAAD is able to fight back against the systemic forces that further discrimination. We would like to highlight our progress on the Combating Violence Against Women & Girls in the Pacific project, and give you insight into goals for this year

1. Writing a Report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on behalf of a consortium of NGOs in Fiji. Based on the Report, the CEDAW committee gave an 8 page list of questions to Fiji to respond to in 2018 on a variety of issues from access to justice for women and girls facing gender-based violence (GBV) to education of rural women. This Report will be a tool for driving legal reforms in Fiji for years.
2. ICAAD organised the first ever train the trainers workshop to raise awareness on sexual harassment in the workplace, in partnership with The Fiji Women's Rights Movement (FWRM). Participants were from key civil society and government sectors and expressed a significant shift in their knowledge of harassment, and their ability to train others.
3. ICAAD continued to make tremendous progress on its rule of law initiatives in the Pacific, traveling to Australia, Vanuatu, Niue, and Fiji this year. This included working directly with judiciaries, universities, women's rights organizations, law firms, and technologists to advance transparency, accountability, and consistency in gender-based violence (GBV) cases. Working directly with Chief Justices, ICAAD was able to gain access to domestic violence and sexual offence cases that were previously unpublished.

Next Steps:

1. Release a Sentencing Handbook on gender-based violence (GBV) for legal practitioners, judges, and activists in the Pacific. The Handbook is currently being drafted in conjunction with attorneys in London from international law firm Clifford Chance LLP, and covers a practical perspective to sentencing, analysis of cases, and common gender-biases that arise in cases.
2. Scale our GBV case-law analysis for the Pacific Island region in partnership with major international law firms, and release TrackGBV, a case law data analysis platform for GBV. We’ve been working with partner Conduent to build TrackGBV and automate some of the analysis so that advocates can spend their time analyzing more substantive issues and see trends in case law as legislative and policy changes are made. 
3. In partnership with DLA Piper, ICAAD is producing a Medico-Legal training program to train medical professionals to better document, collect evidence, and testify in Court, as well as to upskill prosecutors’ understanding of medical testimony so that they can better present their cases. The gap in medico-legal training has been identified by several local stakeholders, including the Fiji Medical Association, as a major obstacle to delivery of justice for victims/survivors of gender based crimes.