Women’s Justice and Empowerment Initiative (WJEI)

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The Women’s Justice and Empowerment Initiative (WJEI) is a U.S. Presidential Initiative to address women’s rights and access to justice across four African countries – Benin, Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia. WJEI was initiated in 2008 and will continue through 2011.  In South Africa, this interagency program works closely with the South African National Prosecutors Authority to combat a very serious gender-based violence problem.   WJEI focuses specifically on strengthening South Africa’s response to sexual violence, and has two key components:

1) Training and technical assistance to build the capacity of law enforcement and the judiciary to investigate, prosecute and adjudicate sexual violence cases; and

2) Increasing access to justice and integrated support services for rape and sexual assault survivors through expansion of and support to the Thuthuzela Care Centre (TCC) network.

For more information, visit our USAID/South Africa's Democracy and Governance Page and the U.S. State Department WJEI page.