Access to Justice for the Women of Karachi
Name of Organization:
Geographical Scope:
Regions:
Country:
Purpose:
The purpose of this pilot study was to establish a scientifically defensible baseline for assessing access to justice for women of Karachi. The project was a cross design combining quantitative and qualitative tools. Government and civil society members were key in the design.
Views and experience about the justice system and the concept of justice were collected from 1881 women in a household survey, 40 gender stratified focus groups, interviews with 12 key NGO service workers and 38 police officers, and institutional reviews of 19 police stations in Karachi. The study investigated coverage of the justice system, its use by women and the experience and perceptions of users, nonuser and service workers.
This pilot was the foundation for the subsequent national social audit of abuse against women and strategies for prevention headed by the Government of Pakistan.
Area of Governance :
Governance and Gender
Justice
Website of initiative:
Publications:
Mhatre S, Andersson N, Ansari N, Omer K., Access to justice for women of Karachi. A pilot assessment, February 2002. Available at www.ciet.org (Library page under Pakistan).
Funding sources:
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
Source of Data:
Own source of data
Type of Data Collection:
Administrative Data
Focus groups
In depth interviews
Random sample population survey
Specifications of type of data collection:
CIETmethods:
The cross design of social audit and evaluation techniques known as the CIETmethod (footnote 1) also known as sentinel community surveillance (SCS) (footnote 2) or service delivery surveys (SDS) (footnote 3) -- tries to maintain epidemiological coherence while introducing the results of surveys for discussion between communities and planners.
The method relies on a panel of sentinel communities chosen and weighted to link the sample to the universe it represents. Cyclical contacts with these sentinel sites are effectively a concentration of measurement resources in time and place, an intense focus of quantitative and qualitative methods in a panel of mini universes. The ability to repeat measurement in the same place makes impact estimation relatively straightforward.
These households can be contacted in successive cycles, perhaps a year or two years later, to measure differences over the period. These differences can be related to programmatic input and other factors that might be vary across different sites. The impact assessment is based on the time sequence and the heterogeneity between sites.
The CIET cross-design usually involves 120 contiguous households in each site to permit the analysis of local factors in the context of household-level occurrences. Some environmental factors might be quantified easily (for example, presence of school, cost of drugs) or they may be more qualitative (adequacy of sanitation, level of participation in community affairs).
If these factors affect the whole cluster, comparisons can be made between clusters or groups of clusters. footnote 1.
Andersson N, Martinez E, Cerrato F, Morales E and Ledogar RJ. The Use of Community-Based Data in Health Planning in Mexico and Central America. Health Policy and Planning 1989;4(3):197-206. footnote 2.
Ledogar RJ and Andersson N. Impact Estimation Through Sentinel Community Surveillance: An affordable epidemiological approach. Third World Planning Review 1993;15/3:263-272. footnote 3.
Presidential Commission of Inquiry against Corruption: Survey of corruption in the police, judiciary, revenue and lands services. CIETinternational/EDI/CIDA: Dar es Salaam July 1996.
Measurement Methods / Tools Generated or Used :
See CIET methods
List of Indicators:
Coverage of the justice system, its use by women and the experience with and perceptions of the system by users, nonuser and service workers.
Main Users:
Civil society
Policy makers