ABSTRACT
Women’s access to formal legal justice is often beset by several obstacles of which low legal literacy, access to information, costs, stigma attached to going to court, court procedures and judicial bias constitute recurring challenges. These are exacerbated in contexts of armed conflict where women also battle war-related trauma, displacement, poverty and the fragmentation of family support and social cohesion. In such contexts, this chapter asks what does access to the law for war-related harms mean for women in former war zones, and in what ways does the frequent eclipse of women, especially those from rural communities, at courts of law impact on the democratic reach and promise of transitional justice? Through the analysis of the narratives of several women who live in a war-affected rural border village and, in particular, the experience of one woman who did go to court but who then decided to walk away, the chapter examines women’s complex engagements with the law and alternative cultural resources they turn to in the pursuit of justice. This includes the realignment of how they remember the past for a more grounded and transformed sense of self.
