[2] In December 2014 it shut its Washington headquarters and devolved the center of its operations to its country office in Nigeria and Burundi[3] from where the organization continues to work with local activists in Africa to promote and protect the rights of marginalized populations.
[5] Source:[6] Access to justice, as defined by the United Nations Development Program are understood and accepted within the international human rights community, this means that laws and remedies must be just, equitable, and sensitive to the needs of the poor and marginalized.
Equal access to justice, whether through the courts or other legal mechanisms, therefore creates a crucial precondition for broad-based prosperity and security under the rule of law.
Where there is a real or perceived breakdown of rule of law, and where political, legal, economic, and institutional biases and barriers marginalize segments of the population, equal access to justice is not a given.
We have been working in Northern Nigeria for over a decade by building the capacity of local activists to provide community based paralegal services (legal first aid) to indigent women who are particularly vulnerable given the paucity of access to justice in the region.
Our paralegal services partners work alongside indigent women to ensure that they can understand and assert their rights in cases involving issues such as forced marriage, child custody, domestic and sexual violence.
In this militarized situation, there is little state accountability and vulnerable populations have become victims of indiscriminate attacks by both the military and insurgents, who act without adherence to the norms of the standards care for civilians.
In her time Global Rights has done work in Cambodia helping to address the lack of legal services since the Khmer Rouge killed the bulk of the country's attorneys.