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Increasing women’s representation and leadership within formal and informal justice systems is crucial to ensure more empathetic, inclusive and effective responses that address the specific needs and experiences of women and girl survivors. Programmes can support women’s representation and leadership by:

Working with local women’s rights organisations to identify opportunities to increase women’s representation and decision-making within informal systems.
Promoting understanding at community level and among justice sector actors about the benefits of increasing women’s representation in…

Survivors of GBV are at high risk of backlash and violence from perpetrators, communities and families for reporting and seeking accountability for GBV abuses. For example, in Rwanda, women who testified in the Gacaca Courts were often subjected to harassment and threats, before, during and after they testified in the courts. Programmes can support survivors to access justice services safely by providing accompaniment for survivors accessing legal and justice services, conducting follow-up visits for survivors in their homes or safe houses, and funding women and girls’ safe spaces. Programmes…

Programmes should work to reduce the financial costs associated with accessing justice, including travel costs, fees for medical examinations, hiring lawyers, engaging with police, attending court, and loss of income while engaged in formal justice processes. They could also offer online services to reduce the cost of travel to and from legal services. Within informal justice systems there may be expectations for families to pay back a woman’s dowry when women file domestic abuse complaints. These costs can make accessing legal and justice services prohibitive for survivors.

Programmes…

We can support survivors to understand and claim their rights by conducting awareness raising campaigns. These campaigns should:

Take a gender transformative approach, avoiding stereotypes about survivors as “victims”, and emphasising their agency.
Ensure awareness campaign materials are inclusive of those with limited literacy, or sensory impairments.
Protect those organising and engaged with these campaigns from backlash.

Patriarchal social norms, practices and attitudes act as a barrier to survivors accessing legal and justice services. For example, families and communities may pressure VAWG survivors to stay silent or to use informal justice systems and to accept decisions that are not in their best interests. In cases of mediation, such decisions could include the expectation for survivors to apologise to the perpetrator and return to living with them, putting them at risk of further violence. Facilitating community discussions around the importance of survivor-centred justice mechanisms is key to creating…

Access to justice programmes should include VAWG survivors in decision-making from the design stage. This can be achieved by engaging with local women’s rights organisations led by or representing survivors. For many survivors, justice means more than punishing perpetrators. It is multi-faceted and subjective. For some, it may be linked to truth, recognition and dignity, for others it may be linked to collective healing, reparations, and accountability. Survivors are best placed to identify their priorities regarding justice and to understand whether and how different systems can support or…

WROs are more effective in addressing VAWG when they collaborate and work together, forging a collective strength that can help withstand the anti-gender backlash they often face. For example, while WROs are engaged as programme partners across all outcome areas of Spotlight Initiative, WROs receive particular support through a dedicated outcome area in Pillar 6 on strengthening women’s movements. This involves activities such as network-building, capacity-strengthening, institutional funding, and working to amplify the influence and agency of WRO’s work on ending violence against women and…

VAWG programmes that work with a range of WROs, representing the needs and priorities of diverse women and girls, are more likely to be inclusive and effective. Within Spotlight Initiative, the Civil Society Reference Groups serve as a valuable mechanism to encourage the participation of diverse WROs in the programme. For example, in Argentina, the Civil Society Reference Group expanded their membership to ensure a broader representation of women with different intersectional statuses and identities. New organisations joined the group, including representatives of women living with HIV/AIDS…

Co-designing VAWG programmes helps ensure that interventions are more relevant and responsive to the diverse needs of WROs and the communities they serve. By actively involving these organisations in the design process, it can increase the likelihood of sustainable, impactful programmes. It can also help ensure that programmes are more likely to reach diverse groups of women and girls. For example, in Grenada and Jamaica, WROs participated in the design phase of Spotlight Initiative calls for proposals to help increase the accessibility and inclusiveness of funding. For more information, see…

Core, flexible funding is vital for WROs because it provides the financial stability needed to plan, adapt, and sustain their work effectively. Historically, funding has been mainly programmatic, with fixed, often short, timeframes and limited flexibility for indirect/support costs. This constrained approach can leave WROs exposed during emergencies when programmes need to adapt or are cut, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or conflict outbreaks. For example, 91% of organisations surveyed in the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) 2021 annual CSO survey said their existence was at risk due…