The Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) course on "Access to justice for women” was translated and adopted to the local context in 2022 during the first phase of the action “Fostering women’s access to justice in Türkiye”. Now in 2023 this course has been complemented with a module on women’s access to justice in the aftermath of natural disasters during the second phase of the action (“Fostering women's access to justice in Türkiye”), as a response to the devastating earthquakes in February 2023. The module is based on a gender analysis conducted in the earthquake zone and aims at increasing legal aid lawyers’ skills on gender-sensitive and victim-oriented legal aid provision with consideration to additional vulnerabilities caused by natural disasters.

An online training session on this new module was carried out for 125 legal aid lawyers (80 women and 45 men) from five bar associations (Bilecik, Hatay, Sinop, Kahramanmaraş, and Malatya).

This training initiative serves to empower lawyers with the knowledge and skills required to advocate effectively for gender sensitive policies in disaster management, safeguard women's rights in all public spheres, and enhance their ability to engage in trauma-informed communication.

Through this participatory training, the action is committed to developing a substantial cohort of legal professionals who are well-prepared to effectively address the critical issues pertaining to gender-responsive policies within the domain of disaster management.

The action “Fostering women's access to justice in Türkiye” is part of the European Union and Council of Europe’s joint programme "Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye". It contributes to enhancing accessibility and quality of legal aid services for women and supporting key stakeholders, including civil society, as well as to increase legal awareness and literacy among women in Türkiye.