It will also expose participants to various legal issues including family law, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence and property rights, inheritance, child custody & maintenance, marriage and divorce.
Established in 2006, FLAG came into being basically to provide support and legal services to women and children, among others.
Addressing the gathering, Fatoumatta Bintou Sanyang, a legal fellow at FLAG, first gave a brief background of FLAG as a professional association comprising different lawyers.
The association, she added, is here to promote and protect the rights of women and children by providing free legal advice and representation for vulnerable women and children.
“We do community outreach and awareness like this one we are doing here today. We also do training and advocacy; lobbying for changes in laws to benefit women and children. We also partner with government institutions and Civil Society Organisations.” she stated.
She expressed belief that when women and children are protected and are able to enjoy their rights, the whole society benefits.
She added; “So today’s session is about our mobile legal aid clinic programme which brings law close to the people. We all know it is difficult to access the laws sometimes in The Gambia.”
Moreover, the three-day session will also provide legal advice to women and children, especially those who have issues and problems that they want to speak about, but find it difficult to access the services of lawyers.
She thus encouraged participants to make best use of the opportunity, further thanking them for their willingness to participate in the session.
Earlier on, Alh. Tombong Jawara, alkalo of Kabafita described the forum as important in view of the fact that it will greatly empower women and children on issues relating to access to justice and other legal support services.
He called on participants to listen attentively and be ready to share the message with others, especially those who are not opportune to attend the event.
Alasan Gitteh, a resource person, harped on the role of women in Islam and protecting women from Gender-Based Violence and issues related to that.
He emphasised the need for women and children to be empowered in society, quoting different Hadiths to back his statement.
“So, it was a great session and we were able to highlight some key hadiths and support from the Quran on how women should be protected by ensuring that they acquire relevant education, which is a critical empowerment to their development.”
Gitteh equally encouraged men to reason that women are their partners, adding that they can grow together and ‘if the partnership is healthy,’ they can achieve a lot.
“This is quite very important. We shouldn't see each other as enemies or as negative infliction of pain against the other gender. No, but rather we should be working together to protect each other.”
