TUNISIA: EMPOWERING WOMEN TO ACCESS JUSTICE AND CLAIM THEIR RIGHTS AT THE LOCAL LEVEL IDLO QUARTERLY REPORT Country Tunisia Programme Duration 1 January 2019 – 31 December 2020 Donor Government of the Netherlands Programme Reference Number 4000002132 Programme Value EUR 700,000 Reporting Period 1 July – 30 September 2020 Submitted to the Department for Stabilization and Humanitarian Aid of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands 11 January 2020 IDLO | International Development Law Organization Creating a Culture of Justice www.idlo.int TABLE OF CONTENTS I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................................................... 1 II. PROGRAMME GOAL ............................................................................................................................................................. 1 III. RESOURCES ............................................................................................................................................................................ 1 IV. PROGRESS AGAINST PROGRAM OUTCOMES AND OUTPUTS ...................................................................... 2 V. CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNED................................................................................................................... 5 VI. CONCLUSION AND WAY FORWARD ......................................................................................................................... 5 The International Development Law Organization (IDLO) is pleased to submit this Quarterly Report to the Department for Stabilization and Humanitarian Aid of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in conjunction with the required IATI reporting for the programme “Empowering Women to Access Justice and Claim their Rights at the Local Level in Tunisia”, based on the agreement signed between the Department for Stabilization and Humanitarian Aid of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and IDLO on 3 December 2018. I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Women in Tunisia continue to encounter barriers in accessing justice and many still lack awareness and knowledge of their rights. Social norms remain an obstacle to legal change, and discriminatory practices on the part of justice sector actors persist. Women, more often than men, tend to seek legal information from informal resources within their families. The lack of a legal framework to effectively address the legal empowerment of women remains a key hindrance to the advancement of women’s right to access justice in practice. Challenges in the administration of justice, such as lack of adequate competences and resources on part of justice sector actors, further compound these complex dynamics. Moreover, the practical application of the normative framework for legal assistance in Tunisia demonstrates the insufficiency of existing legal mechanisms. Through this programme, the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) is providing support to justice stakeholders in strengthening access to justice and legal services for women in the Tunisian governorates of Tunis and Kef. These governorates were selected during the inception phase of the programme. The reporting period (July-September 2020) continued to be challenging for programme implementation because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of the restrictive measures taken by the Tunisian Government to limit the spread of the virus. These measures, including restrictions on social gatherings, slowed down the pace of programme implementation. However, IDLO was able to make progress towards achieving programme outputs by organising two multi-sectoral coordination meetings in Ben Arous governorate on 21 July and 29 September 2020 to assess the challenges in delivering care services and providing assistance to women victims of violence at the local level. At the end of the reporting period, IDLO and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) co-launched a Training of Trainers (ToT) session for ten (10) Tunisian judges. The three-day ToT, which was launched on 30 September 2020, aimed to form a corps of trainers capable to – in turn – organise and deliver trainings to their peers on how to apply and comply with the Law on Eliminating Violence Against Women, No. 58 of 2017. IDLO and its implementing partner Avocats Sans Frontières (ASF) also continued to provide legal aid services for GBV survivors through the legal aid centres established under this programme. II. PROGRAMME GOAL Strengthen the access of women victims of violence to justice and to the assistance services made available to them by the various government structures. III. RESOURCES The total Programme budget is EUR 700,000. As at the end of the reporting period, EUR 372,159 have been spent. 1 IV. PROGRESS AGAINST PROGRAM OUTCOMES AND OUTPUTS OUTCOME 1: WOMEN ARE EMPOWERED TO ACCESS LEGAL SERVICES AND CLAIM THEIR RIGHTS IN TWO GOVERNORATES OF TUNISIA Output 1: Legal and policy dialogue on the existing system of access to justice and its impact on women advanced Gather feedback on the results of the needs assessment on women’s access to justice at the local level In 2019, IDLO conducted a needs assessment in cooperation with the Tunisian Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the High Judicial Council (HJC), the Ministry of Social Affairs (MSA) and other key partners such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Legal Foundation (ILF). The assessment aimed to identify and analyse access to justice gaps and challenges faced by women at the local level, and to propose viable recommendations for improvement. During the reporting period, IDLO continued to present the findings of the needs assessment at two multi-sectoral coordination meetings aimed at stimulating dialogue at the local level to gather additional information on and recommendations to address access to justice gaps faced by GBV survivors. The meetings were held on 21 July and 29 September 2020, at the premises of the Childhood Centre in Ben Arous governorate. The meetings brought together 20 (16 women and 04 men) and 23 (19 women and 04 men) participants, respectively, including judges, psychologists from the MSA, officials of the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Women, Family and Children’s Affairs, as well as representatives of civil society. During both meetings, the participants discussed the challenges faced when dealing with cases requiring multi-sectoral intervention. Challenges include the speed of action and coordination issues caused by the involvement of different actors at the same time and the need to provide immediate and unified reaction, especially in urgent cases. Participants also monitored the testing of the safety assessment tool, a tool created by stakeholders to unify and coordinate the response process and procedures, and measured its impact on the work of all parties concerned. Furthermore, participants identified key recommendations and next steps to improve the capacity of the Judiciary to better deal with GBV cases. Finally, the participants discussed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictive measures adopted by the Tunisian Government in light of the fact that the lockdown measures have dramatically increased cases of GBV in the country and made the stakeholders’ intervention very difficult. It is worth noting that the first meeting was covered by Tunisian media, including online and printed newspapers, thus sharing the results of the discussions with the general public in Tunisia.1 Feedback gathered during meetings continued to inform IDLO proposals for a more responsive and advanced legal aid system, including tools and mechanisms that can assist relevant judicial institutions and local administrations in the two target governorates to deliver better legal aid services and improve coordination between all relevant parties. 1https://www.tap.info.tn/ar/%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%A8-%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%AA- %D8%AC%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%AA-Portal-Regions/12901780-%D8%A8%D9%86- %D8%B9%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3- %D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%86%D8%B3%D9%8A%D9%82%D9%8A%D8%A9 2 Output 2: Integrated legal aid scheme for women in two governorates of Tunisia Develop an integrated legal aid scheme for women in two governorates of Tunisia The COVID-19 pandemic affected implementation of activities under this output, given the restrictive measures put in place by the Tunisian Government banning all social gatherings. Yet, despite the lockdown and the impossibility to organise legal consultations at the programme partners’ locations IDLO and its implementing partner ASF continued to provide support to programme beneficiaries in compliance with Government restrictive measures. In the past quarter, IDLO and ASF developed a new implementation approach, which entailed providing legal consultations and support via telephone.2 This new mechanism was advertised on the national radio station (Radio Nationale Tunisienne), through Facebook,3 and found a large popularity as these were much needed in light of the increased number of domestic abuse against women due to measures of confinement and the challenges to provide these services in situ. During the reporting period, in-person consultations provided by programme partners – mainly civil society organisations – resumed. As at today, the programme provided a total of 83 legal consultations (in-person and remotely), benefitting 215 persons. Partners Number of beneficiaries