The National Association of Community Legal Centres (NACLC) is an association of around 200 community legal centres which aims to assist and promote them, and provides a forum for the development of community legal centres’ policy. For more information, visit their website: http://www.naclc.org.au/
About Us
The Women’s Legal Centre is a community legal centre for women in Canberra and the surrounding area. The Centre is run by women and aims to improve women’s access to justice by:
- Providing legal information and advice
- Referring to sympathetic lawyers and other support services
- Running community legal education sessions
- Producing information for women about their rights, the legal system and the law
- Doing research, law reform and lobbying activities that help to remove barriers to women’s access to justice
- Publishing a quarterly newsletter about our activities
Our History
In 1993, the Australian Law Reform Commission held an inquiry into Equality Before the Law and identified many issues relating to women’s inequality. Many individual women and women’s services in the ACT made submissions.
In 1994, the Commission released its interim report, Before the Law: Women’s Access to the Legal System, which included recommendations for the funding of a women’s legal service in each State and Territory. This report was followed by the final reports, Equality Before the Law: Justice for Women, Parts 1 and 2, which elaborated on the earlier recommendation to establish community based women’s legal services.
In 1995, the Commonwealth government announced funding for women’s legal services in a number of locations, including the Canberra region. Sistertrust ACT Inc, a non-profit community based organisation providing financial and mentoring support to women in the ACT, assisted a group of women to apply for funding to establish a women’s legal centre in the Canberra region. This group incorporated as the Women’s Legal Centre (ACT & Region) Inc on 13 November 2005 and received Commonwealth government funding in the same month. The Centre was officially opened on 8 July 1996.