Paralegal Training for Rural Women and Feminist Research Training in Thailand 2006-2008

Background:
Thailand has experienced rapid economic growth and social-economic change over recent decades, the 1997 banking and financial crisis notwithstanding. Employment opportunities have grown fastest in the urban industrial and tourism centers, drawing both men and women into the cities, both for licit and illicit activities. The resultant out-migration from chronically poor villages has resulted in some remittance income for poor rural households, but rural incomes otherwise remain stagnant. Greater opportunities also draw migrants to Thailand from its neighbors in the region. Thailand has strengthened legal protections offered to its citizens, including the passage and promulgation into law of the Child Protection Act of 2003 and other legislation affecting women. Implementation of constitutional and other legal and statutory protections sometimes falls short, as social change lags legal changes, and legal knowledge and legal literacy remain low, particularly in rural areas. While the number and percentage of women in decision-making and political roles has increased, males still dominate at virtually all levels, providing often unacknowledged resistance to changes which would benefit women-and there by society. Societal norms change more slowly than the law, and domestic abuse, for example, is underreported because of widespread toleration, if not acceptance, in families and communities. As noted in the project proposal, research on Domestic Violence and Women's Health found that nearly half of Thai women (41% in the capital and 47% in other provinces) had experienced either physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner. About one-third of women who had serious injuries requiring hospital care never sought medical treatment .

Purpose/objective:
It is within the above mentioned political and economical context the project operates through strengthening women's leadership, especially in poor rural areas, and conducting awareness raising activities on gender based violence, including violence in close relationships and trafficking. The project aims at stimulating the integration of legal knowledge and feminist perspectives in empowering women of various classes and ethnic backgrounds, and thus gender mainstreaming Thailand's development practices which will hopefully lead to more useful and effective policy recommendations (p. 3).

The Women's Studies Center and the FORWARD Foundation (the latter the project holder) holds
raising women's awareness of their rights as one of its highest priorities. Since its establishment,
the Women's Studies Center is one of the pioneering organizations providing gender-focused
leadership trainings for grassroots women via its Paralegal Training for Rural Women Project.
The Paralegal Training Project targets approximately forty-five paralegal trainees annually, whereas The Feminist Research Training Project targets ten researchers and/or Postgraduate Students. Secondary target group include decision makers in parliament, independent bodies, and judicial process personnel. Geographically, the paralegal Training Project is carried out in all 17 provinces of the Northern region of Thailand while the Feminist Research Training is a cross-country project (p. 2).

Methodology:
Interviews were conducted in 2008 with WSC and FORWARD staff and board members, paralegal trainees, master students and instructors from the Lao Women's Studies program and key personnel from the judiciary and Human Rights Commission (see Appendix table A1). Interviews have not been conducted with rural and ethnic women in the community as end target group of the project (p.5).

Key findings:
The project is making progress toward the ultimate goal of empowering women by equipping them with legal and feminist analytical knowledge for the purposes of overcoming human trafficking and other women's-related issues and to work towards a more just and equal world in general; creating a network of paralegals, academics and political activists through workshops,
field visits and advocacy at the decision-making level in order to strengthen the women's movement; and generating knowledge related to trafficking issues in Thailand through feminist research (p. 6). The conclusion of the evaluation report is that this project is very well worth donor's spending, well executed, well connected and having high impact towards rural women's empowerment and gender equality. The project's leadership, staff's commitment and dedication have been excellent. It can be used to be a model of work elsewhere. Long-term sustainability of the good work must be well thought out and explicitly designed to fit the particular institutional context for each place (p. 23).

However, the evaluation of the project does not state to which extent the overall goal of «using this [research and feminist] knowledge as a tool to overcome human trafficking and other women related issues» has shown real results with regards to a decline in trafficking and gender based violence in the affected provinces. Empowerment of women in the area is clear among trainees, but the extension of that impact beyond those directly trained by WSC/FORWARD varies (p. 10). Rural and ethnic women in the community are not included in the evaluation of the project. Thus, it is difficult to deduce whether investment in training of paralegals has affected local power and gender relations for the main beneficiaries of the project, as they are not properly identified and targeted in the initial project proposal and terms of reference of the evaluation.

Results:
The linkage between paralegal training and feminist research training is part of the approach employed by WSC/FORWARD as means for women empowerment. This results in immediate,
medium and long-term impact on the empowerment of women in Northern Thailand:
• Immediate impact: Paralegal trainees assist to solve particular cases e.g. training, Thai identity card, rape cases, trafficking, domestic violence, abuse of police power, etc.
• Medium term: The networking of effective women leaders with support from educational institutions energizes women's empowerment in the North.
• Long term: The feminist research training generates valuable knowledge which can assist women working to end violence, trafficking, oppression and discrimination.

The linkages among the short-term, medium term and long term impact, the linkage among the different levels of stakeholders and different institutions, and the continuity of this approach for a 10 year long period of time are quite effective in promotion of gender equality in the North of Thailand (p.11)

Recommendations:
The project shall seek to gain support from Thai and donor agencies. In order to truly combat trafficking, an even stronger focus on targeting poor, marginalized and ethnic women should be employed. Further, a closer follow-up of paralegal trainees on a personal level is recommended. The same goes for seminars conducted for the personnel in the judiciary. The linkages to the other faculties of Chiang Mai University can be strengthened and mainstreaming of the gender and feminist perspective into a wide range of academic course work can be improved (p. 23-24).