Legal Advocacy to Promote Health Advocacy in Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region of East Africa

Gender-based violence during and after conflict situations violates not only international criminal and humanitarian law, but the national criminal laws of most states as well. In addition, the consequences of this crime raise urgent public health concerns, such as the transmission of HIV/AID and survivors' mental and emotional trauma and stigmatization. These public health concerns carry legal implications as well.

This presentation will describe the community legal education project of Women's Equity in Access to Care and Treatment (WE-ACTx, www.we-actx.org) conducted in Rwanda in 2006-07 with Rwandan lawyers and community legal educators and affiliated with local health clinics. The program trains community leaders (many of whom are survivors themselves) about women's rights in Rwanda's legal system and in mediation and advocacy skills. The program includes a “know your rights” handbook on the right to health care, freedom from discrimination based on health status or gender, and protection from violence.

The project's goals are to increase the numbers of survivors, especially pregnant women, participating in voluntary HIV testing and receiving necessary health care, whether HIV positive or not; enforce survivors' family and property rights; prevent gender-based violence and discrimination; facilitate the participation of Rwandan survivors in the growing movement to end gender-based violence and discrimination in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa; and achieve reparations.

The program will be evaluated in light of its progress toward creating a sustainable model of local advocacy on a broad range of the survivors' legal needs.