Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras

Different realities, different problems, different analyses, different approaches.

The Project
In 1979 the Overseas Education Fund of the League of Women Voters (OEF), based in Washington DC, initiated a program to address the legal needs of women in the Central American countries of Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras during a time of considerable instability in the region. I was hired to coordinate this project 
with partner organizations in the three countries, in particular, the Federation of Women’s Associations, (FAFH), in Honduras, the Association of Nicaraguan Women "Luisa Amanda Espinoza" (AMNLAE), in Nicaragua and ASODELFI and several other women’s organizations in Costa Rica that had enjoyed earlier association with OEF. 
The original design of this endeavor envisioned legal aid offices established in each country to assist women who might have need of such services. Although the organizations were quite eager to launch such services, I suggested that they take the first few months to do a needs assessment to make sure that the services they planned to offer would be what was truly needed for their context.
​Through a series of workshops in each country, I introduced the groups to a simple, but powerful, framework elaborated by the legal scholar, Lawrence Freidman, that looked at the law as a “system,” composed of substantive, structural and cultural elements. Using this tool to assist them in their contextual analysis, the groups began to explore how each of those elements of the socio-legal system related to women in their counties. Additional interactive workshops with the organizations on effective programming supplemented the research they were conducting. It soon became clear that although Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica shared much in common, (similar legal systems, cultural attitudes, common areas of discrimination), the legal needs of women were unique to each country due to the unique socio-political situation of each.

Honduras was under a military regime at that time, but about to transition to civilian government. The Honduran Legal Services (LS) team immediately targeted the severe deficiencies in Honduran family law and its overt discrimination against women. They determined that law reform—changing the content of the law—should be the focus of work for Honduras, not merely giving assistance to women within the current legal framework. With that in mind, Honduran team set out to draft and lobby for a new family code that would ensure women's equality within the legal system.  The FAFH had a firm basis for this task, as some members had already identified areas of needed change, even before the LS project began. Doña Alba Alonzo de Quezada and Dr. Norma Marina Garcia spearheaded this effort with the support of women throughout the country. They were also assisted by the political opening that the transition to civilian rule provided. Many of the women had experience as either student or political activists, which meant that they had links to various political parties where they hoped to press their case. The Honduran strategy, thus, focused on drafting the language of the new legal code, organizing to gain popular support for their proposed legislation and lobbying the political parties to support their proposal.

​Nicaragua was also in transition. The same year the project began, the Sandinista insurrection had succeeded in ousting the Somoza Dictatorship after 43 years in power. The country was in turmoil with struggles at many levels about how to shape the new government. AMNLAE, the national women's organization, had been part of the Sandinista resistance, so it was in a good position to begin to address the legal needs of women within the new context. There were, however, growing-pains within the organization, as few of them had actually focused on women in the struggle to overcome the atrocities of the dictatorship. Strong civil society organizations were almost non-existent during the Somoza era, so the AMNLAE leadership had very little experience managing a democratic, participatory organization. They were more familiar with authoritarian structures where decisions are made at the top. 
Fortunately, AMNLAE's mentor and designated strategist for the LS project was Milú Vargas, who was also Legal Counsel for the Consejo de Estado, the legislative body of the newly formed government. Milú recognized that the AMNLAE team working on the project faced a daunting challenge. There had been no reform of the family code in Nicaragua since early in the 20th century. Like Honduras, women were highly disadvantaged in the legal sphere and, similarly, it made little sense in Nicaragua to provide legal aid to women based in such a discriminatory legal framework. Moreover, women in Nicaragua had little experience in the political aspect of law reform. It is one thing to draft a beneficial law, another to get it passed in the legislature and properly implemented within the judiciary and administrative agencies of the state. The entrenched “machismo” of the culture was another important factor to consider when constructing a strategy to change the law. 
Under Milú's guidance the AMNLAE team decided that it would be best to begin with a single aspect of the family code, rather than tackling it in its entirety, and to begin with what was of concern to women themselves. After conducting a survey of women across the country, they discovered, surprisingly, that the adoptions law was of most concern to grassroots women due to the vast number of orphans left by the 1972 earthquake that devastated much of capital city of Managua and by the war against Somoza. These children were being cared for by relatives or others, but had very ambiguous legal status and few defined rights and entitlements.  
Even though this law wouldn’t impact the status of women substantively, the AMNLAE team decided to start there. They knew the experience of coming up with needed changes, gaining public support for the changes and finally pressing their proposed law through the Council of State would provide a firm foundation for future changes to the family code. It was also a less threatening topic to the men who made up most of the membership of the legislative body. Following a successful change in the adoption law, they moved onto “patria potestad,” child custody. Here, women were clearly disadvantaged, as fathers retained total authority over the welfare of children in the family.

Costa Rica was the one stable liberal democratic society of the three. The organizations that formed part of the project came from a conventional strain of women’s organizations, most on the traditional, conservative side with regard to women and feminist views. They, like most Costa Ricans, prided themselves on their enlightened legislation and functioning democratic institutions. They felt that there was no need to reform laws and challenge the way they were applied; rather, the need for Costa Rican women was for legal assistance to make sure they received the benefit of their progressive laws. Their strategy was to open a legal aid office and to carry out an awareness raising program to educate women about their law.

Regional Dialog
Central American Legal Services was a regional program involving three countries, not just three separate, unrelated projects. Holding inter-country meetings held every six months and rotating country venues with the five key personnel from each country project became a way to enhance its regional character and promote exposure to new ideas. The purpose of these encounters was the interchange of ideas, analyses, experiences, materials, etc. Productive exchange was not a simple task because of the ideological, cultural, analytical and experiential differences among them. Initially, there was considerable reticence among the participants from the different countries to open to the others, most feeling that their analysis of the issues and best approaches were superior to those of the rest. Of course, not everyone from each country thought alike, but in general that was the feeling. 
The challenge for me, as facilitator, was one of devising a process so that each team could freely present its preferred theoretical or strategic framework and then sincerely listen to the others who might have a very different viewpoint. Some had a very clear feminist perspective, others had a desire to help women, but hadn't thought the problem through  to any depth and the use of such terms as the "subordination of women" were somewhat alien to them. Regional workshops with expanded participation supplemented the twice-yearly meetings in order to introduce innovative ideas and different ways of looking at things. After a while personal relationships formed and a common framework and language began to be shared among them. 

Building Analytical Skills
As the participants listened to one another they began to realize that whether they lived under a military, revolutionary or liberal government or whether their focus was on law reform or provision of legal aid, one thing they all had in common was that women did not know the rights they had, or even think of themselves as the subject of rights, even if the rights were clearly spelled out in law. Moreover, they recognized that successful law reform required an educated public ready to endorse change and a constituency of women aware of their status and willing to press their case.  The importance of legal literacy and awareness raising began to take hold. And as they explored further, they realized that educating the police and judges was necessary too, if advantageous laws were to be properly enforced to women’s benefit.

​As this dialog developed, referral to the initial framework of regarding the Law as a system, became a most useful tool. By reference to it, it became easier to understand and explain their project experiences. And so, the “three circles” framework became better elaborated as a dynamic tool.
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Components of the Legal System

• The substantive Component of the legal system. This covers the content of the law, it is what the law actually says. Here the problem may rest in how the laws are formulated. There may be elements lacking in the law or there may be blatant inequality and injustice or there may be ambiguities that make the law inadequate at best or repressive at worst. The remedy is to change the law.
• The structural Component of the Legal System.  This includes the courts, administrative and law enforcement agencies of the state. Here the problem is that institutions and structures (courts and law enforcement) inadequately apply the law to the detriment of women. The remedy is to transform or create more accountable structures to assure effective application of laws meant to benefit women.
• The Cultural Component of the Legal System. This includes the attitudes and behaviors about the law. The problem here comes from the way people—those who administer the law as well as the population in general—have been conditioned to regard the law. The remedy is empowering women through increased awareness.

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​Project Shock
The story of the legal services project would not be complete without relating the extraneous dynamic that had a profound effect on the project and its ability to follow through with the plans underway. OEF had received funding for this project through U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 1979 during the Carter Administration. This was probably a somewhat anomalous decision, given the history of US support for rightwing dictatorships in Central America. But at that time the Democratic party controlled both the executive and the legislative branches of government. The party's more liberal approach included a push to expand legal services to the poor domestically. When OEF submitted a proposal to carry out such a program for women in Central America, it was met with approval by USAID.  With the election of Ronald Reagan in late 1980, everything changed. Anti-Communism was again the operative principle governing US foreign policy, including in Central America. Moreover, Reagan and  his long-time aide, John Bolton, who was then Reagan's appointed General Counsel at USAID, were emphatically opposed to legal services for the poor. These changes in political and policy perspective would have dramatic consequences for the OEF Central American Legal Services project.
In early 1981, as I was about to travel to Honduras from Costa Rica, I received a call from USAID telling me to check into the USAID office in Honduras before meeting the legal services group there. That seemed strange, since AID Honduras had not shown much interest in the project to that point. Nevertheless, upon my arrival in Tegucigalpa I made my way to the American embassy to meet with AID personnel. In short order, I was instructed to tell the group that Honduras was being cut from the program. Their reason was that one of the principals of the project had been active in a student left-wing group during her university days. Stunned, I replied that I could not do so because I needed to consult with my organization in Washington. They seemed satisfied with this answer and I was off the hook. I immediately made travel arrangements to leave the next day for Washington. To explain my sudden departure, I told the group that it was for health reasons. That was not untrue or implausible to the group because I was scheduled for medical leave in upcoming weeks.
Upon my return to the OEF office in Washington, I was happy to find staunch support from OEF to resist this order. Since the project was funded out of the Washington office of USAID and not from the budget of the Honduras office, OEF immediately made an appeal to headquarters to reverse the directive on the grounds that it was a regional project. It took a couple of months to resolve, during which time I recuperated from my surgery, so my absence from Central America did not seem unusual. All the while the groups knew nothing of the matter. In the end, a couple of sympathetic administrators in the Washington AID office that had funded the project, managed to overrule Honduras and the project continued.
Despite feeling a sense of victory at this news, it was not the end of the matter for OEF and the project. In mid-September, they received notice that no funding would be available for the following year for the entire project. This political decision came from higher-ups in the Reagan Administration’s chain of command and it solved two problems from their perspective: it eliminated support for legal services and it punished left-thinking groups that didn’t fit into their “anti-communist” paradigm.
Sadly, a year of productive work  was placed on the chopping block. Still, there was a bit of money left in the project “kitty,” so plans were able to proceed until the funds were used up. We used part of the remaining resources to cover travel to the US for the leaders of the project to speak to groups across the US about their work and to raise funding from other sources. The final event in their tour of the US was a fund-raiser at the elegant Georgetown home of Pamela Harriman, the English-born American socialite who was a political activist for the Democratic Party.  I don't remember if we raised any money, but I think the event was as much a gesture of protest on her part about what had happened to the project under the Reagan administration as it was a serious fund-raiser. Whatever the case, we all enjoyed the collection of original impressionist paintings gracing the walls of her home. The AID funds were finally depleted in 1982, when the project, as such, terminated. The Central American organizations, however, continued to work for the legislative and other changes they had targeted.

Assessment of the Project
Despite the trauma inflicted by a hostile government agency on the participants in the Central American Legal Services project, the value of its work could not be diminished. The participants' efforts to expand the legal status of women in Honduras, Nicaragua and Costs Rica led to better understanding of gender inequalities and disparities in the law and about strategies needed to make a difference. Learning how the law in its various aspects betrays women and the poor led to actions to educate and mobilize women and the public in pursuit of the cultural and political openings needed to make critical changes in the law and its application. Since there was little information available to them about how women in other parts of the world were meeting this challenge, the Central American groups were in many ways, "making their path by walking."
The Central American Legal Services  project was a dynamic learning process for all involved, the lawyers, the activists and me. The development and use of the “three circles” framework to assist in the analysis and elaboration of strategies to promote and defend women's rights laid the groundwork for future WLD efforts.  It was, in fact, Milú Vargas from Nicaragua who coined the term, "women, law and development" as a concept. The insights gained from this experience was the seed that expanded onto a broader international plane, opening the possibilities for dialogue among more women from other third world countries.
The "Third World Forum on Women, Law and Development" in 1985 was surely the intellectual descendant of the Central American Legal Services Project. ​
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Continue to the Forum on WLD  ​Nairobi, Kenya 1985