Start
February 17, 2024
End
February 17, 2024
The Centre for the Study of Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Colombo partnered with the Legal Aid Commission and Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka to deliver a legal awareness raising session for the public officers of the Divisional Secretariat, Thalawakele recently.
The program focused on rights of women and children, and domestic violence, upon the request from the Divisional Secretary of the need to raise legal awareness of its staff who encounter the said issues among their service recipients. Development officers and Samurdhi officers of Thalawakele participated in the programme and they gained knowledge on custody rights, maintenance of children, child protection mechanisms; connected to support service providers including counselling and family counselling and justice sector institutions; legal action for domestic violence cases; medical requirements in case of child abuse; skills required to respond to the above issues, including in identification of issues; and familiarized the staff on complaint filing process of the HRC, including collection of evidence such as medical reports and other materials, sources of additional information, and the need for promptly reaching the Commission.
The program connected the services of the HRC and LAC to the public administration at the grassroot level public officers in Thalawakele and established a good network of referral of clients to justice sector institutions, encouraging the public officers to act as paralegal support providers.
This program was supported by the European Union in Sri Lanka, under the Support to Justice Sector (# JURE) Project, that is jointly implemented by the UNDP Sri Lanka and UNICEF Sri Lanka, under the facilitation of the Ministry of Justice.
#LegalAwareness #AccessToJusticeForAll #CSHR #UOC #EUinSriLanka #UNDP #UNICEF
