{"id":118018,"date":"2020-01-09T04:32:04","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T08:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/namati.org\/?p=118018"},"modified":"2023-01-11T11:57:43","modified_gmt":"2023-01-11T15:57:43","slug":"5-billion-people-around-the-world-lack-basic-access-to-justice-these-organizations-are-out-to-change-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/namati.org\/news-stories\/5-billion-people-around-the-world-lack-basic-access-to-justice-these-organizations-are-out-to-change-that\/","title":{"rendered":"5 billion people around the world lack basic access to justice. These organizations are out to change that.","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

This article, written by Alessandra Bergamin, was originally published in Ensia<\/a>. It is re-published here with their permission.<\/h4>\n
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By sharing the knowledge and skills needed to exercise basic rights, legal empowerment advocates are helping disenfranchised people fight pollution, gain access to clean water and sanitation, protect land rights and more.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

January 9, 2020 \u2014 <\/span>In 2007, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake hit Peru\u2019s central coast, killing hundreds of people and injuring many more. In the port town of Pisco, about three hours south of the capital of Lima, the earthquake hit especially hard: Homes and buildings crumbled to the ground, the roof of the San Clemente cathedral collapsed upon churchgoers, and, as The New York Times <\/i>described it<\/a>, the city\u2019s main plaza was transformed into a \u201cmakeshift morgue.\u201d In the months that followed, humanitarian assistance was focused on finding survivors and ensuring that the basic needs of some 85,000 affected families were met. But as the dust settled and the crisis subsided, Pisco\u2019s victims found themselves in limbo.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou have humanitarian intervention in the moment itself and when the emergency is gone, people have to take on their new life,\u201d says Patricia van Nispen tot Sevenaer \u2014 the founder of Microjustice4All<\/a>, a legal empowerment organization. \u201cThat process takes time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When Microjustice4All began working in Pisco eight years after the earthquake, many of those affected had fled to the outskirts of town or the rural areas beyond because they lacked the property documents required to access reconstruction assistance from humanitarian aid organizations. Living in informal housing, often without access to water or sanitation and with no legal right to the land they depended upon, earthquake victims risked being displaced once again. For the Microjustice4All team, which focuses on ensuring that vulnerable communities have access to basic legal documents, this was especially concerning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For two years, the Microjustice4All Peru team worked in Pisco and held almost 2,500 legal consultations with residents, seeking to obtain or correct their personal and property documents. In one case, facilitators met an elderly woman whose home was damaged in the earthquake but because of unresolved legal issues, she was unable to access loans or government programs to aid with repairs. A legal facilitator from Microjustice4all helped her resolve the issue in about a month.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cPeople need to be able to go on with their lives and get back to their pre-disaster situation, at the very least,\u201d says Van Nispen tot Sevenaer. \u201cTo do that, legal documents are essential.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Worldwide, some 5 billion people lack basic access to justice<\/a>, according to a report by the Taskforce for Justice, an initiative of Pathfinders for Peaceful,\u00a0Just and Inclusive Societies<\/a>, an interdisciplinary group working on peace and justice issues. For these people, the law can appear to be either an abstract concept or a threat to their livelihood. Because of this, thousands of organizations, including Microjustice4All, have begun to advance the idea of legal empowerment: equipping people with the knowledge and skills necessary to use the law to exercise their basic rights. While the term itself emerged in the early 2000s<\/a>, the practice dates back to the 1950s, when South African paralegals helped nonwhites defend themselves against apartheid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More recently, as communities face a multitude of environmental problems, some exacerbated by climate change and others born from extractive industries, legal empowerment has become a powerful environmental justice tool. The idea and practice has even gained enough traction to be included among the United Nations\u2019 Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Vivek Maru, the founder of Namati<\/a> \u2014 an organization that trains and employs community paralegals across six countries \u2014 estimates that about 70% of their work is focused on land and the environment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re living in a time of historic concentration of power,\u201d says Maru. \u201cAnd the law, which is supposed to be one of the most important tools we have for challenging environmental destruction, has fallen victim to that concentration of power.\u201d<\/p>\n