GBV: Judiciary launches first ever trauma-informed training
The training was launched during the first Specialized SGBV Court at Shanzu Law Courts in Mombasa.
What you need to know:
- Kenya has launched the first ever national trauma-informed judiciary training.
- It is the first of its kind in the history of the Judiciary of Kenya.
- The training follows a partnership between the Kenya Judiciary Academy and Crevit Mulier and Co, a leading legal bureau in Africa.
Kenya has launched the first ever national trauma-informed judiciary training to bridge the gap between access to justice and the public’s perception of poor administration of justice.
It is the first of its kind in the history of the Judiciary of Kenya and focuses on the rights of survivors of violence. Previous trainings concentrated on the victim’s or perpetrator’s character traits and legal underpinnings.
The training launched during the first Specialized SGBV Court at Shanzu Law Courts in Mombasa, follows a partnership between the Kenya Judiciary Academy and Crevit Mulier and Co, a leading legal bureau in Africa.
“The academy is pleased to partner with Crevit Mulier and Co. This project will go a long way in sensitizing judges and magistrates on the significant obstacles to access to justice, particularly by survivors of human trafficking, counterterrorism and sexual and gender-based violence.
State organs
“The collaboration is in tandem with the academy’s delegated mandate of ensuring continuous capacity building for judges and magistrates under the constitution,” the Director of Judicial Education and Curriculum Development at Kenya Judiciary Academy, Dr Fredah Mugambi said.
The training also seeks to expand good working relations among members of the Judiciary and those within the state organs.
Their main objective, at the end of the training, is to have identified and extracted obstacles on the way to deliver justice and how the community and Judiciary can work together in creating a responsive criminal justice system.
Through trauma-informed Judiciary training, they tend to put to a stop to the culture of survivors and victims of gendered crimes being humiliated publicly during trial.
“The tyranny of gender and judicial stereotypes erode the impartiality of judges, magistrates, lawyers, prosecutors, and other judicial officers, and erode the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system.
Rule of law
“The impetus of our research papers highlights the descriptive and prescriptive nature of how gender stereotypes are spun intersectionally to conceptualize unfair moral belief systems, which undermine the rule of law whether in human trafficking, counterterrorism, or gendered crime cases,” noted the founder and managing partner of Crevit Mulier and Co, Lanji Ouko Awori.
After the pilot training at the first SGBV court in Shanzu Law Court, they will embark on training at the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court and the Kadhi’s Court.
