Access to Justice: Creating local level, citizen action mediation bodies to ensure human rights

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:07:58 -0500

by Dinesh Narayan Suddhakar

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The Centre for Victims of Torture (CVICT) in Nepal instituted a tactic to circumvent the problem of police abuse through a process of rights-based community mediation. This community mediation process was piloted in three districts of the country and has now expanded to twelve. The tactic trains local people as mediators and resources to their communities on basic laws and human rights. In addition, it has served as a vehicle to empower women to become community leaders, addressing their individual and collective needs. In the three districts there are currently 90 Human Rights Mediation Committees (HRMCs) and 90 Women Peace Committees (WPCs) at the Village Development Committee level and 810 HRMCs at the ward level.

The WPCs have served approximately 8,000 women who have been included in awareness building programmes and 4,865 women who received basic training on human rights, basic laws and mediation skills. From those who received that training, 1,993 women currently work as volunteers. A total of 964 disputes–out of 1,273–were successfully settled. In addition, legal aid was provided to 24 women to pursue 28 cases in the formal court system. Up to now, both committee types have successfully settled 3,107 out of 3,939 community level disputes.

Evidence of the success of the HMRCs and WPCs is the allocation of annual funds by the government’s Village Development Committees. This is vital to sustain the programme. Perhaps more significant is a public recognition of the HRMCs and WPCs by the formal justice forums, (i.e. court, district administration, police, etc.). Names of mediators are listed by the district court in its notice board. In addition, positive response has come from police and requests have come from other Village Development Committees to institute the programme.

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community, empowerment, mediator

Access to Justice: Creating local level, citizen action mediation bodies to ensure human rights