UFH empowers the women from Duncan Village with free legal services

As we edge closer to the end of Women’s Month, the UFH Legal Clinic under our Law Faculty visited Duncan Village to empower the women from that township and surroundings, with free legal services.

Duncan Village is a low-income residential area located in East London and is home to about 90,000 people who mostly live in shacks located in informal settlements.

Established in 1995, the primary objective of the Legal Clinic is to provide access to justice and practical legal training to students and candidate attorneys. The clinic also seeks to build awareness of constitutional rights and prioritizes the socio-economic rights of vulnerable groups by providing professional legal services to indigent people, especially women and children and rural poor communities.

The community engagement themed, Realizing Women’s Rights for an Equal Future was held on Friday, 19 June in collaboration with the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa); Department of Home Affairs; Department of Social Development and Masimanyane Women’s Right International Group.

Women and men came out in numbers and filled the local hall hoping to be empowered.

Legal matters that were discussed on the day were centred on evictions; domestic violence; maintenance and children’s rights. These matters were presented by Mr Siyabulela Pango, Director of the Legal Clinic and Candidate Attorneys.

The UFH team was led by the Dean of the Faculty, Prof Mzukisi Njotini who addressed the community and delivered an address to set the tone of the gathering.

The session ended with a robust question and answer session that was facilitated by Dr Siyabulela Fobosi, UFH Senior Researcher at UNESCO ‘Oliver Tambo’ Chair of Human Rights.