GAA’s CLE trip took place July 5 - July 19, 2009. A group of Chicago area judges, lawyers, and physicians traveled to East Africa to meet with GAA’s program partners in Tanzania and Kenya for a number of CLE sessions on international juvenile justice, environmental law, international war crimes, customary tribal law, and criminal law. The CLE trip was initiated by Supreme Court of Illinois Justice Anne M. Burke.
The CLE program is taught by Daniel Pallangyo, Dean of the Faculty of Law at Makumira University, and by other attorneys located in Arusha, Tanzania. In addition, attorneys working at the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal on Rwanda are part of the program. Mary Robinson, formerly Executive Director of the ARDC, has established a CLE accreditation business and arranges for all of the CLE accreditation.
THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN’S LEGAL RIGHTS PROJECT
The CLE group also has an opportunity to meet with the staff of the Legal Rights project. After learning from program partners working directly with families affected by HIV/AIDS that the families needed legal services, GAA designed and implemented a program to ensure that widows and orphans of men who are dying, particularly from AIDS and its complications, are made aware of their rights and that these legal rights are then adequately protected. Specific assistance is provided regarding inheritance/probate/wills/estates & guardianships.
Located in regions where there is minimal practice of and adherence to constitutional law at the local level, the program has a profound effect on the targeted population. The program focuses on women, orphans and vulnerable children living in the poorest areas of towns and villages, as well as remote rural areas.
- Marriage in Tanzania is circumscribed by customary, Islamic, or statutory law and may be conducted under each of the above. Depending on their geographical location and ethnic group, some people marry under one of the above or use a combined approach. Ordinarily, customary marriages involve payment of bridal dowries or some other form of traditional payment.
- Widows, married under customary law, may be subjected to complete financial ruin on the death of their spouse as the assets of the matrimonial home may become the property of the husband's extended family. Often, this results in widows and orphans becoming destitute, homeless, and prey to many well-known social ills. Most importantly, this can occur irrespective of one's previous socio-economic status (professional, domestic, or housewife).
- Tanzania has acknowledged, in reports to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, that the property adjustment after the death of a male spouse is one of the "main legal problems facing [Tanzanian] women." In a country which is one of the most severely affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, awareness and education about legal rights of inheritance, etc., will not only strengthen the ability of female-headed households and communities to become more self-reliant but it will also mitigate the impact of disease.
Unfortunately, in East Africa and most of sub-Saharan Africa, where AIDS has had the most devastating effects and where poverty levels are increasingly high, national governments such as Tanzania do not fund legal services, nor are many pro bono legal services available. More often than not, legal services are out of reach for the majority of the population.
The goal of the program is to secure legal rights to inherit property based on the national legal system which is similar to the western one, which allows for inheritance within the nuclear family. The five objectives in reaching the goal of the program are:
- An awareness and educational campaign to alert women to their rights
- Legal services to assist women in filing for inheritance of property
- Social, emotional and economic support for her during this process
- To work with the ethnic and community leadership to understand and assist in this process rather than resist it
- To work with other organizations to support legislation to strengthen the right of inheritance in Tanzania
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