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The Feminist Legal Clinic was established in 2005 and worked in partnership with “Itach-Ma’aki – Women Lawyers for Social Justice” a feminist NGO for the past decade. The Clinic is reopening this year with a new and innovative program. The Clinic aims to stand at the forefront of feminist legal activism and to promote women’s lefts in Israel through multiple legal strategies, including advocacy and litigation, legislation reform, policy papers and raising awareness. The Clinic will engage in legal action in a wide range of legal fields that touch upon women’s lives, including family law, labor law, mediation, and criminal law. The Clinic aims to differentiate itself from the other organizations promoting women’s lefts by choosing to undertake cutting edge and complicated legal issues that have not been dealt with adequately by other organizations.
Clinic Staff
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Domestic Economic Violence:
In 2012 the clinic published a groundbreaking policy paper regarding economic violence, a phenomenon that at the time had received little legal attention. Economic violence is the subjugation of women through economic means – restricting access to the family’s financial resources, taken women’s money, and using financial means to control women’s lives. The clinic continues to be active in giving legal aid to women who suffer from economic violence and to promote policy and legislation that can prevent economic violence.
The Legal Treatment of Victims of Sexual Violence
The clinic aims to improve, using legal measures, the treatment of sexual violence victims. As a part of the project the clinic conducted a survey concerning the treatment given in the designated facilities in emergency rooms treating rape victims. Following the findings of the survey, the Knesset held a special meeting, in which the students presented the findings and recommendations. Among other things, the clinic pointed to problems in the gathering of forensic evidence that often lead to inability to prosecute sex offenders.
Another project pertaining to sexual violence concerns appeals challenging decisions not to prosecute sex offenders. The clinic filed a freedom of information act inquiry concerning the amount of appeals that ended in indictment, and found that in the case of sex offenses only one percent of the appeals were successful. The clinic represents individuals who are victims of sexual violence in appealing decisions not to prosecute sexual violence offences.
Discrimination of women in the workplace on account of parenthood
The clinic is involved in promoting equality in the workplace, and focuses on the complicated issue of discrimination of parents. In January 2017, there was a conference at the Faculty of Law concerning discrimination of women in the workplace with a special focus on the relations between the family and the workplace. Adv. Vardit Avidan, the director of the clinic, spoke at the conference, as did Dr. Arianne Renan Barzilay, the academic advisor of the clinic. The clinic will engage in legal activity in order to promote equality in the workplace for women.
{tab Research}
Sagit Mor, Maayan Sudai, Or Shay, “From Absence to Presence: A Critique of Intersex Surgeries” Mishpatim, The Hebrew University Law Review (2013) [Hebrew]
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