Namati is a Sanskrit word that means “to shape something into a curve.” Martin Luther King Jr. said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” We call ourselves Namati because we’re dedicated to bending that curve.

This video was generously produced by Skoll.org, a long-time partner of ours.

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From January to December, Namati and our partners supported 25,000+ people in 6 countries to address injustices involving land, environment, healthcare, and citizenship. Together, we achieved remedies that directly improved the lives of 300,000+ people, and systemic changes that affected millions more.

We invite you to explore the stories behind these facts and figures in our annual impact report. 

In these pages, you’ll also discover how the Legal Empowerment Network drove our movement for justice forward by fostering deep learning among members across borders and by co-launching a global fund with the goal of investing $100 million in grassroots justice efforts worldwide.

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The law can be a powerful tool for advancing gender justice. When women and girls are equipped to know, use, and shape the laws that affect them, they can make crucial progress in dismantling structural barriers to equality.

The Legal Empowerment Network has hundreds of member organizations working toward gender justice. To commemorate International Women’s Day, we share inspiring initiatives by three of them.

Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST)

BLAST tackles systemic discrimination in the most marginalized communities. The garment industry, for example, employs over 4 million people in the country – mostly women – but has few mechanisms to protect their rights. BLAST mobilizes workers to form “self-help groups” that take up cases of labor rights violations, with a special focus on the experiences of women workers. The organization has also rolled out a mobile app called Sromik Jigyasha (Workers’ Queries), which conveys vital information on labor rights and connects workers to paralegals and lawyers who provide legal advice.

A BLAST paralegal conducts a mediation follow-up at a female client’s residence

Women’s Justice Initiative (WJI)

WJI seeks to end gender inequality and gender-based violence in Indigenous and rural communities in Guatemala. They offer rights education, leadership training, and legal services for adolescent girls and women in Kaqchikel, the local Mayan language. Dozens of graduates of these programs have gone on to become local leaders and grassroots legal advocates for their communities. WJI now coaches organizations in Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras on the use of legal empowerment approaches to advancing gender equality.

Community advocates from Women’s Justice Initiative, Guatemala at a group retreat. (Photo credit: Women’s Justice Initiative)

Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA Uganda)

FIDA Uganda trains community members as paralegals who take on gender justice cases and address structural barriers to gender equality. In a recent initiative, women paralegals in six markets across Kampala city resolved to eliminate violence and harassment from their work environment. They held meetings with market leadership, calling attention to the under-reporting of cases and the absence of redress mechanisms. Their demands provide the basis for policy recommendations that FIDA Uganda is submitting to the Kampala Capital City Authority, for an upcoming ordinance on gender-based violence in city marketplaces.

FIDA Uganda trains paralegals on gender-based violence in marketplaces. (Credit: FIDA Uganda)

There is much we can learn from these three dynamo Network members, and the nearly one thousand others working to realize gender equity across the globe. In 2022, our Network is exploring what we can do together to spark collective learning and action at the intersection of gender and legal empowerment. Help set the agenda: take this short survey by March 11, 2022.

We are honored to walk with BLAST, WJI, FIDA Uganda and all of you to ensure women and girls everywhere can exercise their rights.

In solidarity,

Aakriti, Akhila, Abby, and the rest of the team supporting the Legal Empowerment Network

P.S. The upcoming convening of the Commission on Status of Women will focus on gender equality and climate change. Here’s a roundup of sessions touching on justice. Join our debrief event on March 29, 2022 to discuss the role of legal empowerment in addressing this important intersection of issues.

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If, like me, you’ve felt blue at times during this last year, or tired, or hopeless, this 2019-2020 impact report might be a tonic. You’ll find here stories of ordinary people taking on grave injustice, and winning.

You’ll read how a grieving mother in Mozambique organized with her neighbors to end systemic corruption at the hospital they depend on. How communities in Myanmar stopped unlawful manganese mines from destroying their forests, water, and farmland. How residents from a low-income, majority African-American neighborhood in Washington DC forced the city’s largest infrastructure project to reduce its air pollution.

You’ll read how, tested by the pandemic, our global community of grassroots justice groups — over 2,400 organizations, from nearly every country in the world — has strived to meet this moment. How we came together to create the COVID-19 Grassroots Justice Fund, which has made more of that vital work possible.

Learning from our successes is important, because we face profound challenges. Several paralegals we work with in Myanmar are now in hiding, and one is in prison, because of stands they took in favor of democracy. Most team members with our partner in India are dealing with COVID themselves or caring for sick loved ones. In Peru, three Indigenous leaders — partners of our network member Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales — were killed in February and March 2021 for resisting illegal deforestation.

Worldwide, the share of the population in extreme poverty is likely to increase for the first time since the 1990s. The Director of the World Health Organization declared we’ve reached an era of vaccine apartheid. The global Democracy Index had its lowest overall score in 2020 since The Economist started tracking in 2006. And we are on course to experience catastrophic climate change, which will affect poor and exploited communities the most.

The only things that can conquer challenges like these are movements of people committed to justice. And our movement is stronger and more determined than ever.

We look forward to joining hands with you on the road ahead.

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“Before this time, our male folks were discriminating against us…they will make all the decisions on land issues without considering us. But thanks to this project, our voices are now heard. We now have the right to land and equally harvest crops, including wild palm.”
– Adama Conteh of Mashema Village

“As women, our brothers sidelined us when it came to land issues. They did not pay the required attention when we asked them for land to farm. But with this project, our requests for land are now easily granted. We now know women can inherit property just like men, and now we are equipped to fight back. I also want to thank the section chief for his strong leadership as he constantly reminds the men of the bylaws and how they should obey them.”
– Madam Saffie of Rosint Village

“I now know the size of my family land, and I even know the correct boundaries. I want to thank Namati and partners for coming with this project as it has helped to prevent land and other conflicts in our communities.”
– Marie from Rosint Village

It was clear from the reaction of the other community members, stakeholders, local politicians, and visitors in the audience that these women’s statements — and the confidence with which they spoke — were an unexpected change from the norm.

Women in Sierra Leone are mostly illiterate and the hardest hit by poverty. They are traditionally seen as “the weaker sex”. These factors often lead to their male counterparts marginalizing them, taking advantage of them, and violating their rights. This discrimination against women is outlawed under national law, but embedded in Sierra Leone’s customary law in several ways. Intestate succession is one example. Under customary law, when the husband dies, the wife gets nothing — not the home they lived in or the farmland they tilled. In fact, she herself is considered property to be devolved: one of the brothers of the deceased will inherit the woman, a practice known informally as “widow inheritance”.

Namati’s Community Land Protection (CLP) project supports rural communities to use national laws and policies, as well as mapping and documentation, to protect their customary and indigenous lands and natural resources against intruders, land grabbers and exploitative foreign investors, as well as to prevent intra and inter community conflicts. On the surface, the project may appear to solely serve the advancement of land security at the community level, but when implemented with a gender lens it is also an effective means for advancing equality and protecting women’s rights.

Development agencies such as UN Women, FAO, and OHCHR recognize that throughout the world, women’s ability to access, use, and control land and other productive resources are essential to ensuring their right to equality and an adequate standard of living. The CLP approach supports communities to remove the numerous customary barriers that prevent women’s access, use, and control of land and replace them with protections backed by national laws and policies.

At the outset of the project — and indeed throughout the project’s lifespan — community paralegals hold exclusive engagements with women to enable the free discussion of their situation and needs as they relate to land. The paralegals also conduct legal literacy sessions with the women and with the community as a whole to explain the National Land Policy 2015, including its numerous provisions to ensure inclusivity. The policy states, for example, that communities are to establish Village Area Land Committees that include women as members. This mandatory representation gives women the space and the right to participate in deciding how their communities’ land and resources will be managed.

Community paralegals assist the communities in establishing the committees and collectively devising bylaws that protect the interests of all groups, not just adult males. The technical aspects of the project — the mapping of their land and documenting of its boundaries — is done in a similarly inclusive manner to ensure that knowledge of the communities’ most important resource does not reside only with a select few.

During the scoping and baseline survey which marked the beginning of the project in the chiefdom, women consistently stated in interviews and focus group discussions that land issues are men’s issues; that the men are in control and only they can make decisions relating to land. What is more, they felt that this was how it should be. From the testimonies above, one can see a complete turnaround of the situation. The women in these communities now have the power of law in their hands, and with that, they can stand up effectively in defense of their rights and interests.

And this is exactly what they have done.

In the drafting of the bylaws, the women were able to push through various provisions of their interest including, a provision that give them at least 30% membership in the land governance committee, equal opportunity to participate in the harvesting of wild crops, prohibition of “wife-beating”, right to participate in land-related consultations and decision making, and more.

The project has shown that a legal empowerment approach is not only an effective means for ensuring communities’ rights to land and natural resources are protected, but also for ensuring that the concept of community includes, and will always include, women.

The post A Legal Empowerment Approach to Achieving Women’s Land and Natural Resources Rights appeared first on Namati.

Patients sit in the waiting area of a health center in Mozambique

According to the community, it was common for two providers to attend to patients in the same room simultaneously. This situation caused a number of patients to leave the health facility without receiving care to because they were afraid to talk about their own health in the presence of people who sometimes were from the same community.

“… Whenever I met someone in the room, I was ashamed to say what I had and how I felt … I had sores on my sexual organs but preferred to say instead that I felt headaches and go to another health center to be attended to… My health was steadily getting worse, and I spent a lot of money on transport.”

– Female patient, 37 years old, Chicuque Rural Hospital

The community and the health committee, with the support of Namati’s health advocate, met with the head of the triage department, who acknowledged the challenge but recommended that it be sent to the management of the health facility. Subsequently, the health advocate and committee members met with the director of Chicuque Rural Hospital, who promised to seek a solution.

Maria Francisco, village health committee member

The management of the health facility identified an existing space that was not in use in order to provide privacy during patient consultations. The room was rehabilitated and equipped within one month. At the same time, efforts were made to sensitize providers on the importance of respecting privacy in order to ensure the community’s trust in the health system.

“When the Director said that we had another room for consultations it was a relief for us… because almost every day we were receiving complaints about privacy.”

– Maria Francisco, 48 years old, member of healthcommittee, Chicuque Rural Hospital

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Daw Nan Shan a farmer, mother, and grandmother. 

Fifty-year-old Daw Nan Shan is a widow, a mother, a grandmother and a farmer. For 28 years she has supported her family by growing and selling vegetables in the village of Wan Wai in Eastern-Shan State, Myanmar. The land she farms has been in her family for generations and is registered in her name. But this didn’t stop the military from trying to take it.

In December 2016, the military called Daw Nan Shan and five others from her village to their outpost. The military told the farmers that they were planning to build a road to transport military goods and that the route would go through the farmers’ land. They demanded that the farmers sign a document stating that they voluntarily agree to give up their land to the military. The military promised that they would allow them to use the land once a year. The farmers refused to sign.

A week later, the military took their land anyway.

Daw Nan Shan found out when a neighbor came to inform her that tractors had entered her property. “I was so stunned that I couldn’t speak for a few minutes,” she recalls.

“When I came to my senses, I went to my farm and said ‘please don’t destroy it,’ and they replied saying: ‘This is inside the military area, and we have to do according to the order from above.’ I felt so sad seeing my crops destroyed. I had to concentrate on not crying as I foresaw my family’s future when we lose our farm.”

Land grabs are an enduring issue in Myanmar. Between the 1980s and early 2000s, when the country was under military rule, more than 500,000 acres were taken over by the military, government, and private companies.* Since the transition to quasi-democratic rule in 2011, the government has made significant national reforms to return and protect farmers’ lands, but land grabs by those with power still occur. And when they do, those affected are often unsure as to what can or should be done. They are not familiar with the new policies or what to do when they are not upheld. After decades of living under military rule, some are still afraid to speak out against those in positions of power.

Community paralegals working with Namati’s partners in Myanmar are helping farmers in seven states overcome these barriers to accessing justice. Trained in community education, negotiation, and mediation skills, community paralegals are assisting farmers to understand the law and use it to resolve a variety of land rights issues.

When the tractors evaded her farmland, Daw Nan Shan reached out to the community paralegal who served her village for help.

Sai Sein Win Htun works with Than Lwin Thitsar, a Namati partner organization. He, Daw Nan Shan, and the other five affected farmers started a collective case to get their grabbed land back.

Given that she knew a little Burmese, Myanmar’s official language, Daw Nan Shan took on the role of the ‘active client’, working closely with Sai Sein Win Htun and sharing what she learned with the other farmers involved.

Daw Nan Shan (right) with paralegal Sai Sein Win Htun

Daw Nan Shan and Sai Sein Win Htun’s first step was to write a complaint letter to the Township Land Management Committee. A week later, the Settlement and Land Record Department came to measure the land in question. It was an encouraging sign. But in the weeks and months that followed, they heard nothing, despite their persistent follow-up.

After five months, Daw Nan Shan and Sai Sein Win Htun submitted another complaint, this time to a higher office. Officials from a number of government departments and the military soon arrived to measure the land. Three days later, the clients received the news: the government declared that the military did not own or have a claim to any of the farmers’ land in question.

Six months after having lost it, Daw Nan Shan got her land back and with it, a new sense of power. “I didn’t have confidence before in going to see the government and raising my issue, but now I think I can do it.” And, she adds,

“I can share these experiences with others who are in need. If I ever have a similar experience again, I will be ready to face it. I am now aware that I shouldn’t be subjected to any injustice and that there are ways to tackle such situations.”

—

*The Parliamentary Land Investigation Committee has put the figure at more than 500,000 acres of land. Other estimates put this number in the millions of acres.

Story collected by Nwe Ni Soe and Tim Millar of Namati, and Sai Sein Win Htun of Than Lwin Thitsar

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Without performing a physical exam, the nurse declared that Mariamo was not yet ready to deliver and returned home to sleep.

Four hours later, Mariamo gave birth to her son—with the assistance of the health center cleaner.

“The cleaner went to call the nurse, but she came back alone. My baby was left for a long time with his head stuck—a part was already outside. The cleaner saw that I was suffering and tried to help pull the baby out, but it was so difficult. My son was finally born at dawn. I had already given up hope of surviving. It was only in the morning, when they changed shifts, that I got help from a nurse. The other one left as if nothing had happened.”

Namati’s health advocate and several members of the village health committee conducted a routine visit to the maternity ward the following afternoon. Mariamo told them her story.

Several days later, the village health committee held a community education session focused on the rights of patients seeking maternal health services. Two women who had given birth on a weekend stood up and shared personal experiences similar to Mariamo’s. A number of women in the community said that they preferred to have their babies at home.

Soon after, the village health committee and health advocate met with the director of the health center to discuss these concerns. The director presented the nurse in question with a formal warning and called a meeting of the entire maternity ward staff to remind them of the potential health risks resulting from negligence and disrespectful treatment.

The situation improved significantly. The head labor and delivery nurse noted, “In our supervision routines, when we speak with postpartum mothers and family members, we hear reports of courteous, correct care … but we believe we can still do better.”

These improvements have also been felt by patients and community members. One young woman from a nearby village recalled,

“When I went to the hospital I was very fearful because I had heard that the cleaners were assisting with deliveries. I was surprised and happy to have been treated very well by the midwife there. My daughter and I are healthy.”

Zélia, a member of the local health committee, had a similar assessment: “The situation has gotten much better. The nurses are now assuming their responsibility with dedication. They attend deliveries with courtesy.”  Both the hospital leadership and health committee members continue to monitor the ward to ensure everyone receives safe and humanized care.

*Name changed at the request of the individual  None of the women in the photo above are Mariamo. 

Story collected by Ellie Feinglass

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The government began to address these seizures in 2012, and by 2015 Daw Mya was working with a community paralegal from Namati’s partner organization, Than Lwin Thitsar. Together, they collected documents and data from the local land administration records department and the powerful General Administration Department. They knew the military controlled most of the formal and informal systems within Myanmar, and so they presented their case to the military directly. Long used to acting with impunity, the military rejected the complaint. After those negotiations failed, they wrote letters of complaint to every local body involved in land rights issues. Their letters led the body to open an investigation. In 2016, a military-controlled civilian body ruled in Daw Mya’s favor. After nearly 20 years, her land was returned to her.  

Daw Mya’s victory sparked investigations into eight more cases of land seizures in the area near the military base — all eight of which resulted in land returned to the rightful owners.

Recommended reading:

• Gendered aspects of land rights in Myanmar: Evidence from paralegal casework 
• Streaming Institutions to Restore Land and Justice to Farmers in Myanmar

The post Fighting Land Grabs in Myanmar: Daw Mya’s Story appeared first on Namati.

In November 2015, I had the chance to participate in a learning exchange hosted by Namati and the Bangladesh National Woman Lawyers Association (BNWLA). I was very grateful to be selected to go. The exchange focused on women’s empowerment and the use of paralegals in improving women’s access to justice. Namati’s land rights program in Myanmar, where I work, does not focus on women and child rights and I was excited to learn about this topic of women’s empowerment.

The exchange was for two weeks in Bangladesh and we had more than enough time to visit local organizations and government departments. We learned about the organizations’ work, challenges they faced, and how they tackle those challenges.

I shared my challenges and received opinions from other participants too. One of the challenges I shared was about advocacy. We do not have a strong relationship with the government in Myanmar and therefore there are some challenges when we do advocacy work.  

I learned many things about advocacy, monitoring and evaluation, and more. But what I learned about women’s rights really impressed me and it encouraged me to do more women empowerment work in Myanmar. Before the exchange, I did not know how there could be a link between women’s empowerment and our land rights work. I just thought that I could learn about women’s rights in other countries’ contexts but did not think that these learnings can apply to my work.

After the exchange, I shared the experiences and learning that I gained from the participants and activities in Bangladesh with my colleagues in Myanmar. My team members were so inspired by my exchange and understood that we need to include gender aspects in our land rights work. My colleague Caitlin Pierce and I decided to work together to research and publish a policy brief on the topic. We published the brief, called “Gendered Aspects of Land Rights in Myanmar: Evidence from Paralegal Casework”, in April 2016.  The brief recommends actions the Myanmar government can take to help increase women’s engagement in land use management and access to tenure rights.

When I was developing the brief, I reflected on the learning experiences from Bangladesh to help me think of more gender aspects to research and include. For example, I always believed that in every sector in Myanmar, women’s involvement is lesser than men’s. They are not in favored positions; most of them stays behind the curtains to support the men. I did not agree with this and my disagreement became stronger during the exchange visit in Bangladesh. I saw there that most of the women suffer a lot and carry too much of the family workload. But when I visited the Victim Support Centre, I saw most of the police officers are women. I realized that women can do like men. They are not different. I was so inspired to see these policewomen – I want it to become more like that in my country. That is why in the brief I had included recommendations for more women to be involved in land-related government sectors in higher positions. Our research showed that in Myanmar, only 42 out of 16,758 village tract administrators are women and there is not one female Township Administrator.

When the brief was published, I tried out the best ways to approach the government – just like we discussed in the exchange. I learned there that when doing advocacy work you need to approach the right persons in the right way. If your way of approach is wrong, the advocacy is not effective. I learned that having a good relationship with government is a kind of support for advocacy. Then, when we are meeting with government officials and sending our brief, they will pay more attention to our recommendations. 

The things I learned about advocacy worked well. I was invited as a special guest to talk about the experiences of gender and land rights to members of parliaments in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw. Other organizations also found that our women and land rights policy brief is useful for them. I was so honored to present our work to MPs and other organizations. They all agreed on what I said about needing to have more women empowerment in our country. I included my learning exchange experiences when I talked to the government officials and partners – it helped to make my recommendations stronger.

I am really thankful to our Myanmar program staff and participants at the Bangladesh learning exchange. Because of the learning exchange, I was motivated to research about gender and land rights work in Myanmar, and the most inspiring thing is that I can now share that research and learning exchange experiences with other partners and organizations.

—–

To learn more about the gendered aspects of land rights in Myanmar, check out “Myanmar Risks Leaving Women Behind” in The Diplomat, the premier international current-affairs magazine for the Asia-Pacific region.

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