A PRACTITIONER’S GUIDE TO INCREASING WOMEN’S ACCESS TO ELECTORAL JUSTICE Finding 8: ADR processes could be opportunities for women’s electoral justice complaints to be heard, but they may also be vulnerable to the same institutional and cultural biases as formal electoral judicial processes. As noted above, ADR processes can be used to resolve electoral disputes outside formal judicial and institutional processes. They can also “enhance the participation of women or traditionally disadvantaged or marginalized groups, both as petitioners and as adjudicators/mediators,” as ADR processes can be “more welcoming and user-friendly for individuals who are unfamiliar with formal judicial proceedings or have limited physical or financial access to the judiciary.”32 Some ADR processes such as those facilitated by non-state justice providers, can be “more accessible, affordable, trusted and transparent, and can provide a swifter and fairer response,” but they can also be “discriminatory or exclusionary” and “often replicate and reinforce dominant power structures and gender bias.”33 A related concern is that ADR mechanisms – because they are meant to be alternative ways to solve disputes in order to avoid the formal justice system – may lead to increased pressure on women to abandon their claims in the interest of preserving community cohesion or promoting conflict resolution over justice and accountability. In instances when the responsible institution for ADR is also the subject of a complaint, this conflict of interest could be harmful for the justice process. Findings from the field Having identified the gaps in the existing research and literature and arrived at the findings noted above, IFES set out to conduct original research in this space through case studies in Kenya and Nepal and interviews with key electoral stakeholders in Malawi, Indonesia, and Central America. The findings from this field research are summarized below, and the full case study reports from Kenya and Nepal are included in annexes B and C, respectively. The case studies and key informant interviews aimed to answer the following research questions: • What are the practical challenges women face in accessing electoral justice? • What legal or institutional reforms are needed to ensure women’s equal access to not just EDR mechanisms but to true electoral justice? • What can EMBs and EDR bodies do to increase women’s access to electoral justice and the effective adjudication of women’s disputes? • What role can civil society play in promoting women’s access to electoral justice? Roblot, T., Cox, R., and Anyanwu, U. (2024, May 16). Alternative Dispute Resolution in Elections: A Practitioner Brief. IFES – The International Foundation for Electoral Systems. 33 Gordon. (2019). P. 6. 32 15