Through this programme Suriya is focusing on justice and accountability for women and girls who have experienced violence and other rights violations. We also working on using legal mechanisms as well as social justice and accountability mechanisms for violence against women and girls. We work with individual women on their journey to claim justice as well as work at the structural level to improve the legal process itself. The specific components includes empowerment of individual victims, group processes for psychosocial support, building consciousness that their experiences are part of a larger women’s gendered experience and building collective solidarity and sisterhood. It also includes research and monitoring of legal processes, actively lobbying with lawyers at the district and national level, pressuring the AG’s department to reform their processes, working closely with the national bodies and strengthening networks among women’s organizations at the district and national level.
Suriya also focusing on changing social norms and cultural practices that discriminate against women, including ethnic identity politics and focus on improving services and structures existing to respond to violence against women.