As Zimbabwe commemorates International Women's Day on March 8th, Legal Resources Foundation, an organisation whose vision is to see a Zimbabwe where human rights are upheld and people have access to justice adds its voice to the call for the theme "Connecting Girls: Inspiring Futures".

Zimbabwe is a signatory to a variety of regional and international human rights instruments, most of which espouse the right to equal access to education. Signing of these instruments clearly demonstrates the country's desire to be bound by the provisions of these instruments.

Some of the human rights instruments that are pivotal to the promotion and protection of women's rights that have been signed by Zimbabwe include: the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women[ CEDAW], the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa [ Women's Protocol] and the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development.

As we celebrate International Women's Day, it is important to once more remind ourselves and the government in particular about the commitment we, as a country made by being party to the above cited treaties.

For close to a decade, Zimbabwe has been in the throes of a political crisis in which the credibility of the government in power has been at stake. While the population has been impoverished, all government services, including the justice system, have suffered severe damage. At the same time the economy has collapsed and now, in the past year, a constitutional crisis has been added to the mix. The power-sharing agreement brokered by the former President of South Africa has ushered in a period of confusion and, so far, little forward movement.

In spite of Zimbabwe’s serious problems in maintaining functioning courts and the rule of law, paralegalism has been continuously developing and taking hold as an important avenue to provide access to justice to increasing numbers of citizens.

Starting from the end of the 1980s, the Legal Resources Foundation (LRF) began working with paralegals in community education and later involved them also in case work. Since then other legal service NGOs have employed paralegals, and the trade unions have developed a two-tier paralegal programme to provide assistance to their members when they are engaged in labour disputes.

In the context of a malfunctioning justice system, negotiation and mediation have become important methods which all paralegals try to use to resolve disputes.

The Legal Resources Foundation is an autonomous, charitable and educational Trust, established by trust deed and registered under the Welfare Organisations Act [93/67] in 1984 (now Private Voluntary Organisations Act [Chapter. 17:05]).  It was established to meet an expressed need to improve the accessibility of legal and information services to all sections of the population. 

The operative arms of the Legal Resources Foundation are the centres, the first of which was opened in Harare in July 1985. Further centres were opened in Bulawayo in 1987, Gweru and Masvingo in 1991 and Mutare in 1996. The Legal Publications Unit (LPU) was opened in Harare in 1987. The LRF has a national network of 23 full time legal advice centres and four part-time, covering all provinces except Mashonaland West.