Strategic Advocacy for Human Rights INC.

1) Litigate cases of gender-based crimes, including rape, honor killings, domestic abuse etc. to defend women from wrongful punishment, prosecute offenders, and win reparations for victims.

2) Hold States accountable when it fails to uphold human rights or incriminates women on the basis of oppressive cultural norms.

3) Create safe spaces for collective healing and restorative justice, often in collaboration with local activists. This includes developing storytelling workshops and other forums for survivors to work through harmful notions of shame.

4) Advocate for better laws and policies to make courtrooms friendlier to women.

5) Train local human rights lawyers in gender-competent strategic litigation and to advocate for reforms to biased legal systems. We also encourage women to become lawyers and judges and we support them along the way.

6) Support and co-create survivor-led movements for change at the global level, such as #MeToo.

Our team of human rights lawyers challenges gender stereotypes by practicing the law through a feminist and grassroots lens. We are unique because our mission goes beyond case representation. Through our petitions and interventions, we are institutionalizing gender-sensitive processes into the justice chain; we target systemic issues which allow gender-discrimination to thrive in the first place; we push courts to recognize women’s rights and needs. And when they don’t, we find ways for women to collectively testify to their truth so that they can heal from their trauma and move on.

Specifically:

- We work with local lawyers to investigate and collect evidence of violence against women in order to advise and represent survivors in court. Drawing on our gender-sensitive perspective on local and international law, we:
> assist lawyers and prosecutors to discover and evaluate evidence
>Prosecute perpetrators of crimes such as honor killings, intimate partner abuse and rape.
> Defend women who are in conflict with the law to ensure they are afforded a fair trial and not taken advantage of during the justice process.
> Secure the release of individuals who have been arbitrarily detained.
> Obtain redress and compensation for survivors of violence
> apply for confidentiality or anonymity measures to support clients and witnesses testify safely.
> ensure that our clients are offered the option of in-camera trials.
> petition for presence of support persons to help them testify and ease the process.
> advocate for trauma evidence to ensure that sentencing or compensation reflects all injuries suffered by our clients.
>hold court personnel accountable to their duties.
>challenge victim-blaming or gender-biased attitudes and language in court.
>hold police, prosecutors and judges accountable to their duties under the procedure.

- Through our individual casework, we also identify systemic gaps within the justice system and address them through public interest litigation, trainings, and policy advocacy

- We share our research and analysis of human rights violations through reports and toolkits to advocate for a more nuanced understanding of the gender justice across sectors.

- Through our trainings, we build capacities of lawyers and activists to navigate legal systems in innovative and gender-sensitive ways in order to enhance their support to survivors.

- we work with local community leaders to subvert harmful gender perceptions and stereotypes.

- we look for justice alternative to the formal courts settings, which are too often inadequate and not ready for the real transformation.

- we cultivate opportunities for survivors and communities to speak out about what changes they would like to see and provide resources to help them achieve it, because we recognise that formal justice isn’t always what individuals need. Restorative justice, instead, helps to reconcile feelings, relationships and accounts.

Women's rights defense work is extremely dangerous and sensitive. That is why over the past 10 years we had to operate underground and under-the-radar with very little funding, through our trusted grassroots partners and local networks.

However complex and challenging, we continue to do this, because of the urgency to stop impunities and make sure that all survivors of violence can access equal, healing and transformative justice.

With more funding for our vision of gender justice for all, we can scale and transform lives of community women leaders, lawyers and advocates who are most impacted by systemic inequities. We have already proven that we could deliver substantially and meaningfully over ten years with our own time, resources and energies. Our team is a testimony to the big changes that can be made by a small team of dedicated people.

More investments will make it possible for SAHR to train creative, feminist lawyers to fearlessly take on 200 cases per year and defend women and girls that are wrongfully prosecuted, subjected to virginity testing, blamed for crimes accused against them and denied a fair trial or even just the chance to speak the truth of their personal accounts.

We have a team of 50 effective, organized, trustworthy advocates that now need the necessaries resources to continue doing this work full time, as a priority, and to dedicate to it energy and skills. Not a day goes by when we are not reminded by the power of our unwavering commitment to create a world where healing is justice and justice is healing.

- Provided over 20,000 hours of pro-bono legal services.

- Raised awareness of women’s legally-sanctioned economic rights among 300 community leaders in two Afghan provinces

- Trained and mentored more than 100 lawyers in Afghanistan:
> To strengthen their defence submissions
> To secure the release of rape victims imprisoned for adultery and moral crimes
> To secure divorces for victims of domestic violence
> To overcome discriminatory court directives
>To prosecute perpetrators of sexual violence

- Advised more than 100 women’s rights advocates around the world on using legal arguments presented in cross-disciplinary journals and judgments to strengthen their cases.

- Promoted progressive interpretations of Islamic law in Court by highlighting more than 50 landmark rulings on women’ rights in family and criminal law in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India.

- Encouraged the criminalization of sexual violence in war by creating and sharing toolkits that summarize successful prosecution strategies from the International Criminal Court Tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda

- Showcased and amplified the groundbreaking work of grassroots coalitions and networks such as The Red Elephant Foundation, Medica Afghanistan, Kranti, and The Bussy Project.

- Assisted in securing asylum for 5 individuals and their families who were being persecuted in Syria, Palestine, Libya and Afghanistan.

- Empowered more than 100 lawyers, journalists, academics and activists to fight for women’s rights through a series of educational seminars and workshops known as Digital Dialogues on Gender and Human Rights

- Supported the families of disappeared and/or abducted persons across South Asia and the Middle East in their quest to track down their loved ones.