10 December 2025 | Lilongwe, Malawi
On Human Rights Day 2025, the Gender and Justice Unit (GJU) and the Women Judges Association of Malawi (WOJAM) formally signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to strengthen survivor-centred access to justice for survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) and other vulnerable communities across Malawi.
The partnership brings together WOJAM’s institutional leadership within the judiciary and GJU’s expertise in legal empowerment, community engagement, digital justice innovation, and monitoring and evaluation. It builds on several years of successful collaboration between the two organisations, including joint work under the UN Women–funded Spotlight Initiative, GBV mobile courts, legal empowerment clinics, community liaison models, and the use of the EmpowerLine digital platform (toll-free 4285 and mobile app) to support survivors on their justice journeys.
Focused Areas Under the New MOU
The newly formalised partnership provides a dedicated framework for:
- GBV Mobile Courts and Legal Empowerment in Dedza District, and
- The planned EmpowerLine Plus Digital Justice Enhancement Initiative, which will expand multilingual digital access and referral pathways across districts where GJU and WOJAM previously worked together under the Spotlight Initiative.
Under the MOU, the partners will jointly implement:
- Mobile court sessions
- Legal empowerment clinics
- Integration of EmpowerLine with court services
- Community paralegal and liaison support
- Shared monitoring, evaluation, and evidence-based advocacy
Justice as a Human Right
Speaking upon signing, Justice Jean Rosemary Kayira, President of WOJAM, reaffirmed the importance of the moment:
“On this Human Rights Day, we reaffirm that access to justice is not a privilege but a fundamental right. This formalised partnership strengthens our ability as judicial officers to reach survivors where they are, uphold the rule of law, and ensure that justice is accessible, responsive, and survivor-centred.”
Sarai Chisala Tempelhoff, Executive Director of the Gender and Justice Unit, added:
“By formalising our collaboration with WOJAM, we are creating seamless pathways from legal information and community support to real justice outcomes for survivors of gender-based violence. On Human Rights Day, this commitment is both symbolic and deeply practical.”
Strengthening Community-to-Court Justice Pathways
The MOU establishes key guiding principles, including:
- Survivor-centred and trauma-informed justice
- Confidentiality and data protection
- Accessibility and disability inclusion
- Linguistic equity
- Gender-transformative approaches
- Do-no-harm programming
By intentionally aligning community-based legal empowerment, digital access to justice, and formal court processes, the partnership strengthens national GBV response systems and brings justice closer to communities, especially in rural and underserved areas.
About WOJAM
The Women Judges Association of Malawi (WOJAM) is a professional association of judicial officers committed to bringing the courts closer to the people and strengthening public confidence in the justice system. WOJAM’s work focuses on judicial outreach, mobile courts, and enhancing access to justice through rights awareness and survivor-centred adjudication.
You can follow WOJAM’s work on LinkedIn here:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-judges-association-of-malawi-wojam/