Justice for Women

We are a feminist campaigning organisation that supports, and advocates on behalf of, women who have fought back against or killed violent men. Over the past years, Justice for Women has developed considerable legal expertise in this area, and has been involved in a number of significant cases at the Court of Appeal that have resulted in women's original murder convictions being overturned, including Stacey Hyde, Kiranjit Ahluwahlia, Emma Humphreys, Sara Thornton and Diana Butler.

Our Mission

Justice for Women contributes to the global effort to eradicate male violence against women, which includes sexual and domestic violence, and coercive control. Our focus is on the criminal justice system of England and Wales. We work to identify and change those areas of law, policy and practice relating to male violence against women, where women are discriminated against on the basis of their gender.

Objectives

• To work towards an end to discriminatory provisions in the legal and policy framework of England and Wales relating to the criminal justice system as it impacts on male violence against women and to ensure that this framework is effective in preventing continued discrimination against women.
• To change opinion relating to women and men’s experience of male violence against women. The targets for this opinion change include the general public, the judiciary, legal practitioners within the criminal justice system, legislators and policy makers. 
• To change practice in the criminal justice system relating to male violence against women amongst the Crown Prosecution Service, defence practitioners, the judiciary and other professionals that come into  contact with women who have experienced this violence.
• To prevent the onset or continuation of discrimination within the criminal justice system against women who have experienced male violence. 

Strategy

We use a range of legal media and grassroots advocacy strategies to work towards eradicating male violence against women. These include:

• Monitoring and reporting publicly on cases (first instance, appellate and Criminal Cases Review Commission cases) of women facing criminal charges for the deaths of male partners or ex-partners by whom they had experienced violence.
• Monitoring and reporting publicly on the response of the criminal justice system to male violence against women as evidenced by domestic homicide and other serious violence against women.
• Monitoring and reporting publicly on cases where women who have experienced male violence face criminal charges resulting from discriminatory treatment on the basis of gender by any aspect of the criminal justice system, in relation to the male violence they have experienced.
• Conducting public campaigns on behalf of and ensuring adequate legal representation for individual women who are facing criminal charges as described above, or who have been convicted of these charges.
• Developing and maintaining networks of women’s organisations and other civil society organisations – both within and outside the UK – concerned with male violence against women, and facilitating direct links between women activists.
• Justice for Women is made up of women from all walks of life, including legal practitioners, researchers, activists and women working in the field of male violence.