Power and Rights in the Community: Paralegals as Leaders in Women’s Legal Empowerment in Tanzania

Dancer, Helen

doi:10.1007/s10691-018-9371-6

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…34 Power dynamics in a given society undermine and prevent the marginalised from accessing justice for their development. 35 In southeast Nigeria, the negotiation process of bridewealth payment presents an intriguing analytical lens for understanding power dynamics, cultural hierarchies, and access to justice. The process involves an intricate bargaining interaction between the groom's and bride's families.…”

Section: Cultural Hierarchy and Justicementioning

confidence: 99%

"Talk to my father": re-thinking social exclusion and access to justice in the context of bridewealth negotiation

Diala

2021

Law democr. Dev.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Broadly, the concept of social exclusion denotes a condition in which peopie are unabie to voice their opinion freeiy and fuiiy in matters affecting their iives. It often manifests as unequai respect for, and protection of people's rights based on gender, age, race, and simiiar demographics. Sociai inciusion has become a concern for poiicy deveiopment and impiementation, particuiariy in cuiturai matters, where tensions often arise between traditionai norms and universaiist State iaws. In this context, brideweaith payment in Southern Nigeria presents an intriguing iens for examining social exclusion. Here, women's exciusion from their own brideweaith negotiation iiiustrates the interpiay of agency and unequai power reiations, two twin elements that affect access to justice and policy development. So, in what ways does women's exclusion from bridewealth negotiation broaden understanding of access to justice and development programming? This article argues that women's cultural exclusion from bridewealth negotiation hinders their agency in marriage under customary law. Using data obtained from Southern Nigeria in 2016, it shows how the sustenance of social exclusion stands at the intersection of law, culture, and justice.

show abstract

Section: Cultural Hierarchy and Justicementioning

confidence: 99%

"Talk to my father": re-thinking social exclusion and access to justice in the context of bridewealth negotiation

Diala

2021

Law democr. Dev.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Cultural Hierarchy and Justicementioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

2020

Law democr. Dev.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Broadly, the concept of social exclusion denotes a condition in which people are unable to voice their opinion freely and fully in matters affecting their lives. It often manifests as unequal respect for, and protection of people's rights based on gender, age, race, and similar demographics. Social inclusion has become a concern for policy development and implementation, particularly in cultural matters, where tensions often arise between traditional norms and universalist State laws. In this context, bridewealth payment in SouthernNigeria presents an intriguing lens for examining social exclusion. Here, women's exclusion from their own bridewealth negotiation illustrates the interplay of agency and unequal power relations, two LAW DEMOCRACY & DEVELOPMENT

show abstract

The use of legal empowerment to improve access to quality health services: a scoping review

Joshi

Schaaf²,

Zayed

2022

Int J Equity Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper presents the results of a scoping review that examines the extent to which legal empowerment has been used as a strategy in efforts to improve access to quality health services in low- and middle-income countries. The review identifies lessons learned regarding legal empowerment program strategy, as well as impact on health empowerment and health outcomes, research gaps, areas of consensus and tension in the field. The review included three main sources of data: 1) peer-reviewed literature, 2) grey literature, and 3) interviews with key legal empowerment stakeholders. Peer-reviewed and grey literature were identified via keyword searches, and interviewees were identified by searching an organizational database and snowball sampling. The key findings were: first, there is very limited documentation on the use of legal empowerment strategies for improving health services. Second, the legal empowerment approach tends to be focussed on issues that communities themselves prioritize, often narrowly defined local challenges. However, legal empowerment as a strategy that pursues collective and individual remedies has the potential to contribute to structural change. Third, for this potential to be realised, legal empowerment entails building capacity of service providers and other duty bearers on health and related rights. Finally, the review also highlights the importance of trust—trust in state institutions, trust in the paralegals who support the process and trust in the channels of engagement with public authorities for grievance redress. Several gaps also became evident through the review, including lack of work on private health providers, lack of discussion of the ‘empowerment’ effects of legal empowerment programs, and limited exploration of risk and sustainability. The paper concludes with a caution that practitioners need to start with the health challenges they are trying to address, and then assess whether legal empowerment is an appropriate approach, rather than seeing it as a silver bullet. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12939-022-01731-3.

show abstract

Power and Rights in the Community: Paralegals as Leaders in Women’s Legal Empowerment in Tanzania

Cited by 3 publications

References 27 publications

"Talk to my father": re-thinking social exclusion and access to justice in the context of bridewealth negotiation

"Talk to my father": re-thinking social exclusion and access to justice in the context of bridewealth negotiation

Untitled

The use of legal empowerment to improve access to quality health services: a scoping review

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About