Aim

With funding from The Oak Foundation, CWJ has worked with independent consultant Purna Sen on the creation of a sustainable international feminist legal network of lawyers and legally focussed NGOs (doing strategic legal work and other policy impact work) on male psychological violence against women.

Objective

The network will connect with individual lawyers, NGOs that work on the law and how it operates, and others making creative use of the law and campaigning for legislative reform to

• improve our mutual learning

• create an evidence base of legislative, policy, practical and litigation initiatives that combat psychological violence

• build state accountability on psychological violence towards women

• explore defences and other solutions for women criminalised as a consequence of psychological violence

• produce a reliable, authoritative evidence base in the form of briefings, resources and event recordings, that will be of longer-term use.

 The network will allow experts to share learning with each other and with decision makers in their own jurisdictions, contributing towards improvements in law and practice to tackle psychological violence to women and girls, and its harmful impacts.

The working language of the network will be English.

Principles

1. A shared commitment to

• challenging and containing male violence against women and girls targeting the roots causes of intersectional gender inequalities

• making visible state violence and fostering state accountability for the safety of women and children

• holding abusers, private financial and business entities and the state accountable; thus working to change systemic inequalities anti-racist principles and practice

2. Learning and sharing strategies on strategic litigation, strategies to improve access to justice for victims/survivors, collaborations, embedding change and other interventions that bring feminist analyses into legal practice incorporating feminist perspectives that re-conceptualising 'justice'.

3. Mutual learning and respect: IFLN seeks to advance mutual learning on the context, inhibitors and enablers of litigation in line with principle 1 Recognising diversity of positions and analysis, IFLN will make it possible to have spaces of complexity that draw on expert and evidence-based discourse, seeking to avoid the shutting down of discussion and debate as membership and participation is extended to include those who may have different perspectives as to how to best tackle complex issues.

To read the full terms of reference please see - IFLN-Terms.pdf