Description
Romania has an index of equality between women and men of 35.3 (100 meaning full equality), being placed last in the European Union, and well below the EU average (54). Gender discrimination is widespread and generally tolerated by society, manifested in all areas, including work, health, politics, leisure and privacy. The main objective of the project is to create a Pro Bono Network of lawyers to provide legal representation and assistance to discrimination cases in the Romanian counties of Cluj, Mureş and Bistriţa-Năsăud. Moreover, it will build capacity for 30 lawyers to work on discrimination cases and to use the international human rights instruments in court. The projects aims to contribute to a better representation of discrimination cases in courts, to raise awareness on discrimination issues in the local communities and to empower vulnerable groups to realize their fundamental rights. The project is addressed to persons exposed to all forms of discrimination, including Roma, as well as women victims of sexual harassment and gender violence.
Summary of project results
The Pro Bono Network for Human Rights responds to the need for access to justice of vulnerable groups from Romania, when their fundamental rights are violated. The role of the project is to eliminate some of the barriers that these people face when they want to defend their rights. Launched on the 18th of December 2014 in Cluj-Napoca through a public debate, The Pro Bono Network for Human Rights is, after one year of activity, composed of 48 Pro Bono Lawyers and 3 partner law firms. It helped over 100 beneficiaries to defend their rights, it covered 12 human rights areas, it received over 100 requests for legal aid, from which 9 cases were brought to court. The main activities financed by the project resulted in an increased capacity of 42 lawyers to better understand and make use of the antidiscrimination and human rights legislation, better collaboration with 30 NGOs, institutions (such as Law Faculty of Babes-Bolyai University) and other actors who work directly with vulnerable groups, increased visibility of the project and of the problem of access to justice, increased organisational capacity to manage and develop the legal assistance project. In addition, the benefits of this project have gone further than legal aid - through the activities carried out, the promoter managed to promote legislation regarding human rights, to raise awareness on the vulnerability of certain groups of society whose voice is seldom heard, and to promote a pro bono culture based on volunteering and passion for human rights. The need for free legal services is nevertheless extremely high and this project covers but a small fraction of it. Regarding the changes brought to the beneficiaries' lives, it is too early to measure whether their legal problems were solved, since many cases are ongoing. Still, 11 of the 16 interviewed beneficiaries do not know what they would have done had it not been for The Pro Bono Network for Human Rights, because they did not have any alternatives. To name a few of the completed cases that brought a positive change in the lives of the beneficiaries, they have prevented the social eviction of 80 people, the majority of Roma ethnicity, a woman beneficiary obtained a favourable court decision in a case of harassment sentence, a group of people with disabilities regained access on a street in Bucharest through a successful annulment of an administrative act which violated such right, and many others.
Summary of bilateral results