Domestic Violence and Gaps in Access to Justice at Hawassa City

Metaferia, Bethlehem (2017) Domestic Violence and Gaps in Access to Justice at Hawassa City. Masters thesis, Addis Ababa University.

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Abstract

This thesis examines domestic violence and gaps in accessing justice. To this end, it employs qualitative data obtained from semi-structured interviews and data gathered from Hawassa City Police Stations as well as legal reviews. This thesis principally scrutinize gaps of access to justice in domestic violence cases at Hawassa City going through both formal and informal administration of justice and taking legal protection, legal awareness and remedy as components of access to justice. The writer contends that the non-ratification of Optional Protocol to CEDAW and Maputo Protocol would have provide additional avenue for victims of domestic violence to access remedies. The Criminal Code is just implying something is being done rather than reflecting interest of the health and safety of individual women by regulating the wide swath of violations in addition to physical violence. There is both financial and expertise constraint, lack of training methodology to evaluate the attitudinal change of stakeholders and low level of civil society involvement in addressing legal awareness about the available remedies and avenues. This thesis also finds out that the discretion of the police to initiate investigation, resource constraints in evidence gathering, the usual base of the public prosecutors evidence only on the statement of the victim and high withdrawals of cases to the informal administration of justice/mediation starting from the police to the trial, unavailability of victim support service are the common problems faced in the criminal justice system. Besides, lack of enough expertise in enforcing custody judgment of the court and absence of strong legal aid provisions up to representing the victim in civil suits are the focal issues in the civil justice system. So much so that, the thesis proposes for the ratification of both Optional Protocol to CEDAW and Maputo Protocol, the enactment of comprehensive law in addressing physical, sexual, psychological and economic violations as a crime in addition to the provision of different civil remedies. Allocating adequate budget in addressing awareness creation, cooperation with civil society organizations in addressing support services as well as legal aid services for victims of domestic violence are also some of the way outs sought by the thesis.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Subjects:	J Political Science > JS Local government Municipal government K Law > K Law (General)
Divisions:	Africana
Depositing User:	Emmanuel Ndorimana
Date Deposited:	12 Sep 2018 08:58
Last Modified:	12 Sep 2018 08:58
URI:	http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/5171

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