SUBSCRIBE TO THE GENDER JOBS NEWSLETTER

Equality Now is an international human rights organization that works to achieve legal and systemic change to end violence and discrimination against women and girls worldwide. The organization does international and regional advocacy and collaborates with grassroots groups, human rights organizations, and individual activists to promote gender equality through legal and policy reform. Its core areas of work include ending gender-based violence, including sexual exploitation, harmful practice, and discriminatory laws.

Within its Ending Gender-Based Violence program, Equality Now promotes strong legal frameworks and effective justice systems that deliver accountability in cases of sexual violence. As part of this work, Equality Now is developing a global guide that identifies key categories of evidence, analyzes common evidentiary challenges, and highlights best practices concerning evidence in the investigation, prosecution and adjudication of sexual violence cases. The guide aims to improve access to justice for survivors.

Equality Now seeks to engage current or former legal practitioners as consultants to contribute domestic and regional-specific analysis. Consultants will identify key evidentiary challenges, propose practical solutions, and highlight effective domestic practices.

Objective of the Consultancy

The consultancy aims to generate country- and/or region-specific analysis on the collection, presentation and assessment of evidence in sexual violence cases, including practical approaches and jurisdiction-specific examples, from a human rights perspective. 

This analysis will inform the development of a practical guide for legal practitioners and criminal justice actors, including investigators, prosecutors, judges, legal aid providers, and survivor advocates on how to address cases of sexual violence based on international human rights standards.

In jurisdictions with consent-based definitions of sexual violence, the consultant, among others, will provide progressive examples of how lack of consent can be established beyond evidence of physical force or victim resistance. In jurisdictions where criminal laws have not yet been brought into compliance with consent-based international standards, the consultant will identify practical evidentiary approaches that can help practitioners better argue survivors’ cases within existing legal frameworks, while avoiding reliance on stereotypes, victim-blaming assumptions or unduly narrow force-based interpretations of sexual violence.

Qualifications and Experience 

Equality Now seeks qualified and experienced consultants with the following profile: