LEGAL EMPOWERMENT THROUGH LEGAL AID

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LEGAL EMPOWERMENT

THROUGH LEGAL AID

An examination of the Support to Victims

of Human Trafficking programme

This thesis is submitted for obtaining the Joint Master’s Degree in International Humanitarian Action. By submitting the thesis, the author certifies that the text is from his own hand, does not include the work of someone else unless clearly indicated, and that the thesis has been

Manon Martens S3227200

June 2019

First supervisor Second supervisor

dr. B.E. (Brenda) Bartelink dr. A. (Andreas) Kotelis

University of Groningen University of Malta

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Abstract

Although legal provisions are presumed to serve all members of society, vulnerable individuals and communities often lack the resources and capabilities to effectively exercise and claim rights. As a response to this problem, legal empowerment gained increasing recognition in the international development agenda. Legal empowerment shifts the focus from the supply side of the law to the needs and priorities of the end users of the law through a process that enables the poor to use the law, the legal system, and legal services to protect and advance their rights and interests. This dissertation presents an empirical study that links theoretical insights of legal empowerment with a current practice of legal aid – the dominant approach to promote legal empowerment – to examine if and how this legal aid practice adheres to the legal empowerment paradigm. By doing so, this study also sheds light on the effect of legal aid on broader development processes. In conclusion, this dissertation shows that legal aid does not only adhere to the legal empowerment paradigm, but could also increase capabilities in other spheres. There is an important interconnectedness between legal empowerment and non-legal features of the broader process of empowerment.

Key words: Legal Empowerment, Legal Aid, Capabilities, Functionings, Vulnerability, Precarity, Victims of Human Trafficking

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List of abbreviations

▪ ADB - Asian Development Bank

▪ B8 - Temporary residence permit

▪ B9 - Continued residence permit

▪ GDP - Gross Domestic Product

▪ HLCLEP - High Level Commission for Legal Empowerment of the Poor ▪ IND - Immigration and Naturalisation Service

▪ NGOs - Non-Governmental Organisations

▪ NLRC - Netherlands Red Cross

▪ OSM - Ondersteuning Slachtoffers Mensenhandel (Support to

Victims of Human Trafficking Programme)

▪ ROL orthodoxy - Rule of Law orthodoxy

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Although legal provisions are presumed to serve all members of society, vulnerable individuals and communities often lack the resources and capabilities to effectively exercise and claim rights (Benjaminsson 2014: 6). The dominant top-down, state-centric approach to bring about the rule of law causes a widening gap between the law on paper and the law in practice. Its primarily focus lies on the supply side of the law and a corresponding focus on the demand side, which it notably civil society, is often lacking (ADB 2009: 39). Financial, geographical, technical and psychological barriers further undermine the needs and ability of ordinary citizens to access and exercise rights (Benjaminsson 2014: 8).

Legal empowerment recently gained increasing recognition in the international development agenda as an alternative paradigm to bring about the rule of law (Golub 2003: 5). International agencies, policy institutions, foundations, and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) increasingly focus on the importance to cultivate the power, voice, priorities and experiences of the end users of the law, and try to support them by providing structures, services and tools to use the law themselves. Legal empowerment focuses on bottom up approaches to answer to the needs of civil society in general, and members of vulnerable groups in specific. This generated an increased interest in identifying legal empowerment practices and its impact.

This dissertation seeks to contribute to recent debates on the promise and practice of legal empowerment by exploring legal aid as an effective legal empowerment strategy. It presents an empirical research that links theoretical insights of legal empowerment with a current practice of legal aid to victims of human trafficking by the Netherlands Red Cross, the OSM programme (Dutch: Ondersteuning Slachtoffers Mensenhandel/Support to Victims of Human Trafficking). As victims of human trafficking are already subordinate in their victimhood, it seems crucial that they are not moved from one system of control into another – that is, from being controlled by traffickers to being controlled by today’s dominant legal system (Jorge-Birol 2008: 174).

In this study, legal empowerment is analysed from a capabilities perspective, considering legal empowerment as the process of creating means through which vulnerable individuals and groups can enhance capabilities to effectively claim rights. By doing so it sheds light on a broader discussion on the effect of legal aid on enhancing opportunities in other capability spheres and broader development processes. In sum, this study answers the following questions: If and how does OSM as a legal aid programme adhere to the legal empowerment paradigm and to what extent does legal aid enhance capabilities in- and outside the legal sphere?

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The value of this study lies in the empirical findings presented in chapter 3. Though the point might be simplistic, the assessment of legal empowerment initiatives should be derived from the concrete benefits of the service users (Banik 2008: 19). As explained by Masser (2009: 7), comparative legal empowerment assessments usually neglect the importance of individual experiences and Masser therefore calls for a more subject-centric approach. The purpose of this dissertation is to respond to this call and understand key stakeholders’ – that is persons who were supported or trained, or who were otherwise involved within the legal aid programme from the Red Cross – perceptions on legal aid as an approach to promote legal empowerment. Their perceptions and expertise are eventually used to answer the given research questions.

There are four chapters in this dissertation. The following chapter, chapter 2, provides the theoretical background of this study. It examines the concept legal empowerment, explores the capability approach and presents the social ontology of precarity as an alternative to vulnerability. Chapter 3 shows the empirical findings of the interviews that were conducted for this study. It starts with the data analysis of the client interviews followed by an analysis of the interviews with volunteers, social workers and lawyers. Finally, chapter 4 includes the discussion part in which each main concept will be once more discussed to provide interpretations and show how the proposed research questions are answered.

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Chapter 2: Theoretical background

2.1 Legal empowerment

2.1.1 Origins

Legal empowerment is one particular way to bring about the ‘rule of law’ that emerged within the development community as a critique on today’s dominant approach. The World Bank’s 2002 Initiatives in Legal and Judicial Reform defined the rule of law as a condition that prevails when:

1) the government itself is bound by the law, 2) all in society are treated equally under the law, 3) the government authorities protect the human dignity of its citizens, and 4) justice is accessible for its citizens (World Bank 2002: 3).

The rule of law is one of the essential pillars of any democratic society and prevails when laws are equally applied to every person in society, and accessible by all (World Bank 2002, Golub 2003: 7, Carother 2010: 4). Within this dissertation, access to justice is systematically approached and includes all aspects of entry and use of the legal system. Among these aspect are physical access to law enforcement agencies, access in financial terms, access in technical terms (how comfortable individuals are with the legal language and procedural requirement as well as how individuals are treated by duty bearers) and in psychological terms (how confident individuals are in engaging with legal actors) (Benjaminsson 2014: 8).

Today’s dominant approach to bring about the rule of law pursued by the international development community is the so called ‘rule of law orthodoxy’. The rule of law orthodoxy emphasizes a top-down, technocratic, state-centric approach that works through formal structures and state institutions such as judiciaries and ministries of justice (Domingo, O’Neil 2014: 4; Golub 2007: 48). The major sources of funding for rule of law orthodoxy programmes are multilateral development banks that consider the rule of law as essential for long-term development as it provides security for foreign and domestic investment, international trade and other vehicles that could help spur economic growth and reduce poverty (Golub 2003: 7; 2010: 105). Some donors also apply the rule of law orthodoxy for goals that go beyond the economic sphere. Although the underlying justification that seeks to advance to rule of law under the rubrics of good governance and democracy differs from that of multilateral banks, also these law programmes emphasise a top-down, state-centered approach (Golub 2010: 107-108). State institutions are seen as the vehicles for promoting the personal safety, security, human dignity, and access to justice of vulnerable groups protected by law (ibid.: 107).

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Although the dominant framework remains appropriate in certain cases (Carothers 2010: 108), questions began to arise about underlying assumption, the impact, and insufficient attention paid to actual justice priorities. As analogical reasoned by Golub (2010):

Today’s heavy emphasis on judges, lawyers, and courts is analogous to what the public health field would look like if it mainly focused on urban hospitals and the doctors staffing them, and largely ignored nurses, other health workers, maternal and public education, other preventive approaches, rural and community health issues, building community capacities, and nonmedical strategies (such as improving sanitation and water supply). […] It [the ROL orthodoxy] is a house without a foundation.

The rule of law orthodoxy largely ignores the formalist rule of law as defined by the World Bank. It focuses excessively on the supply side and lacks any corresponding focus on the demand side, notably civil society (ADB 2009: 39). Justice is not always accessible for all citizens, and government authorities often fail to protect the human dignity of its citizens. The rule of law orthodoxy ignores underlying realities and undermines the capacities and power of the end users of law and justice programmes. It is therefore arguable whether the rule of orthodoxy should remain the central means to integrate the rule of law (Golub 2003: 3).

As an alternative to and a critique on the rule of law orthodoxy, a new approach towards bringing about the rule of law emerged in the early 2000s: legal empowerment. In contrast to the rule of law orthodoxy, legal empowerment approaches focus explicitly on the end users of the law. It transfers the power from today’s dominant gatekeepers of the law (judiciaries, ministries of justice, lawyers, attorneys) to ordinary people of civil society who make the law meaningful on a local level (Day, Quinn 2013: 1). Legal empowerment seeks to cultivate the agency, power, voice, priorities and experiences of these people, and tries to gain understanding of how they can use the law themselves to advance their interests (Domingo, O’Neil 2014: 12). Hence the most important concept of legal empowerment is power instead of the law (Islam 2010: 4). Affected individuals and communities are seen as partners, rather than passive actors. Instead of saying “I will solve this problem for you” and claiming rights on behalf of victims, legal empowerment says “I will work with you to solve this problem and give you tools with which to better face such problems in the future” (Maru 2010: 83, 85).

2.1.2 The concept ‘legal empowerment’

The term ‘legal empowerment’ was first used in 2001 in a report written by Stephen Golub and Kim McQuay to describe various legal initiatives carried out by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and The Asia Foundation (TAF). Legal empowerment was defined as “the use of law to increase disadvantaged populations’ control over their lives through a combination of education and action” (Golub, McQuay

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2001a: 7). In the continuation of this dissertation, the project team decided that this definition would not suffice for the goal of the project, which was to assess the impact of various legal empowerment initiatives. The concept ‘increased control’ was particularly troubling as having a sense of control is a subjective psychological experience that could be attributed to a wide range of factors (Ladner 2007: 10). A more precise definition was developed that defined legal empowerment as “the ability of women and disadvantaged groups to use legal and administrative processes and structures to access resources, services, and opportunities”. This definition may be too narrow and might not be all-inclusive, but it did serve the purpose of monitoring and evaluating legal empowerment initiatives under ADB projects (ibid.).

The concept later achieved greater salience in the international agenda on rule of law reform when it was officially articulated in the High Level Commission for Legal Empowerment of the Poor (HLCLEP) report in 2008 (Domingo, O’Neil 2014: 14). It describes legal empowerment as “a process of systemic change through which the poor and excluded become able to use the law, the legal system, and legal services to protect and advance their rights and interests as citizens”, it “expands the rule of law to the benefit of all citizens, rich or poor, men or women, rural or urban, and whether they belong to ethnic majorities, indigenous people, or other minorities” (Palacio 2006: 15). According to the Commission’s approach, two key conditions for legal empowerment are ‘identity’ and ‘voice’ (ibid.). The end users of the law need a recognised identity that reflects their agency, and they need to have a voice that will be heard in order to claim legal rights. As vulnerable groups are often unable to assert their legal rights due to their political and/or social situation, barriers, and power relations, effective voice may require the help of external actors.

According to Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “legal empowerment of the poor is a rights-based strategy for improving governance and alleviating poverty”. Legal empowerment uses legal tools to help the poor learn, act on, and enforce their rights with as goal to alleviate poverty (Golub 2003: 29). The means towards this goal are often rights-based in nature: teaching relevant laws, building capacities to use laws, providing legal representation. But legal empowerment can also involve development activities such as literacy training, community organising and livelihood development (ibid.). In this context, legal empowerment can use various mechanisms, of which many rights-based, as means towards alleviating poverty.

The previous given definitions of legal empowerment emphasize different meanings to the terms ‘empowerment’, ‘legal’, and ‘poor’. First, different opinions exist on whether empowerment is a process, a goal, or both. Second, an element of disagreement is whether the term legal describes the means of empowerment or the end result (legal empowerment). Is empowerment legal because it uses law and other rights-based measures to empower the poor or because the poor have greater legal power as a result (Bruce et al. 2007: 3)? And third, questions arise on whether the poor only includes

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the economically poor or whether it rests on a broad interpretation that includes all marginalised and vulnerable people in society (ibid.: 1). The terms ‘disadvantaged population’ and ‘control over one’s lives’ used by the ADB and the TAF can suggest that legal empowerment does not only involve an economic escape, but also an escape from social and political deprivation to gain freedom, respect, and status (ibid.: 3). Within this dissertation, I apply a broad understanding of the poor, considering poverty in terms of deprivation of individuals’ opportunities, capabilities and capacity rather than in terms of GDP.

2.1.3 Different levels of legal empowerment

In response to increasing legal empowerment demands, aid agencies started to use this relatively new and somewhat poorly bounded concept in different areas in need of reform, leading to a diversity of levels of engagement with the law that can be seen as empowering (Bruce et al. 2007: 11). In 2007, USAID came with four categories with which different legal empowerment initiatives can be distinguished: 1) rights enhancement, 2) rights awareness, 3) rights enablement, and 4) rights enforcement (Heymann, Cassola 2012: 128). In practice, programmes are often a combination of two or three approaches. A programme that involves all four approaches in equal measure almost never occurs (ibid.).

Rights enhancement programmes provide channels for vulnerable groups to reform the law or influence the process of making laws (Marotta 2017: 11; Heymann, Cassola 2012: 128). They make sure that people can protect their rights and access opportunities through measures and mechanisms that reform rights. Such programmes can be about promoting dialogue between vulnerable persons and key legal stakeholders on their rights, advocating lead advocacy efforts and initiatives, and encouraging vulnerable individuals to unify to increase legislative engagement and policy influence. The idea of rights enhancement is built on the assumption that laws have the potential to transcend government policies and have therefore the ability to lawfully expand opportunities (Heymann, Cassola 2012: 128).

Rights enforcement initiatives focus on the successful implementation of rights through easy, fair and affordable pathways of dispute resolution and legal provision (Bruce et al. 2007: 24; Heymann, Cassola 2012: 128). They make sure that individuals can access and protect their rights through accessible mechanisms. Vulnerable groups are in particular disadvantaged when it comes to corrupt legal systems, lacking economic resources to pay bribes and political status to influence the system (Bruce et al. 2007: 25). Law reform initiatives include the implementation of small claim courts or mobile courts, legal clinics, reformation of court procedures, elimination of costly steps and formalities, but also innovations such as creating a watchdog group that supervises local officials, and the creation of public meetings with local officials to give individuals the possibility to file complaints (ibid.).

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Rights awareness programmes focus on the cognitive component of legal empowerment and ensure that individuals are aware of their rights, applicable laws, their entitlement, and the available mechanisms through which their rights can be claimed (Heymann, Cassola 2012: 128, 134; Purkey 2013). Individuals can lack even the most basic awareness of the concepts of rights and the law due to physical and technical constraints (e.g. remoteness, low educational level, low literacy) (Golub, McQuay 2001a: 31). A lack of basic awareness is characterised by the idea that such remote legal concepts do not have any relevance to their lives or even the ignorance that laws and rights exist (ibid.). Different ways to build rights awareness are through legal literacy campaigns, sustained capacity building, inclusion in union-organisation, and assigning resident representatives (Bruce et al. 2007: 18). Rights awareness lies at the base of any effort towards legal empowerment and is therefore often seen as the most essential component (Bruce et al. 2007: 17; Marotta 2017: 11).

Rights enablement ensures that individuals can overcome social, economic, and other barriers to access rights by providing means (e.g. necessary knowledge, legal skills) to expand their opportunities (Bruce et al. 2007: 20; Heymann, Cassola 2012: 128). This is often achieved by means of procedural assistance, e.g. with the completion of forms. The most common enabling processes are legal reform and legal aid services that facilitate individuals’ ability to exercise and defend their rights, and therefore access legal, economic, and social opportunities that come with those rights (Bruce et al. 2007: 20). Legal enablement is seen as the core process of legal empowerment.

These four categories show that interventions to legally empower vulnerable groups do not always requires changes in the constitutional, legislative and/or organisational level. Measures, such as legal literacy campaigns and legal aid services, can also be undertaken within the existing legal framework and do not require major resources for implementation and the help of officials, politicians and others (Bruce et al. 2007: 30). In the continuation of this dissertation, I will focus on a legal empowerment programme that does not require legal change or law reform as such. In specific, I will focus on a rights enablement initiative: legal aid.

Legal empowerment through legal aid services

As explained, the process of rights enablement involves those mechanisms that can assist individuals to assert and defend their rights to expand their legal, economic, and social opportunities. Enablement processes respond to the barriers and disadvantages faced by certain groups or individuals in accessing rights (Bruce et al. 2007: 20). The underlying idea is that legal support can help overcome the various challenges faced by vulnerable groups and/or individuals such as lack of legal representation, legal illiteracy and language barriers (Benjaminsson 2014: 6).

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The most common and visible enablement effort to provide procedural assistance is through legal aid – the provision of legal assistance by an individual or organisations to a client at no cost or at a very minimal cost (Bruce et al. 2007: 21; Obura 2010: 4). Legal assistance can be highly diverse and includes activities from completing forms to representing individuals in legal proceedings. All these activities do, however, share the same core objective: bridging “the gap between rights granted to the disadvantaged and their ability to exercise those rights effectively” (Bruce et al. 2007: 21).

The most prominent form of legal aid are programmes that employ individuals to work as paralegals (Bruce et al. 2007: 21). Paralegals are “non-lawyers with specialized legal knowledge and skills that enable them to educate or aid disadvantaged people concerning law-oriented issues” (Golub 2010: 1). They often go through a programme or training that typically includes a general introduction to law and a specialty training in one particular area of law (e.g. property law, family law, inheritance). Sometimes they also receive guidelines on how to support individuals or communities effectively (Ladner 2007: 43). Paralegals can be both volunteers or paid professionals who display a particular interest in and aptitude for law-oriented work (Golub, McQuah 2001b: 46).

What makes paralegals such a valuable resource to provide legal aid is that he or she can cost effectively teach vulnerable individuals or groups about the law so they can use the law themselves to advance their interests and opportunities (Golub, McQuay 2001b: 22). As the core process of legal empowerment, it is important that paralegals actively engage individuals or groups that receive their support. Rather than to serve their legal needs on their behalf, opportunities should be created that give them power to use the law and legal tools confidently (Bruce et al. 2007: 21). Moreover, paralegals can function as external actors that can give vulnerable people a voice; as explained, a necessary condition for effective legal empowerment. They give vulnerable individuals or groups the opportunity to express themselves and allow them to have a say in and therefore some control over legal processes that affect their lives (Purkey 2013: 277).

Rights enablement programmes in general, and legal aid initiatives in specific, often combine more than one category of legal empowerment. Usually legal aid is undertaken in isolation from legal change or law reform (Bruce et al. 2007: 31). However, legal aid programmes may also be used to diagnose needs for legal change, to build support for such changes, or to support dialogues with the government that could advocate for social, policy or legal change (Bruce et al. 2007: 31; Benjaminsson 2014: 7). A more common mutually-enhancing combination is that between rights enablement and rights awareness; for example a single programme that combines legal literacy and legal aid.

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2.2 The capability approach & a social ontology of precariousness

In this second part of my theoretical framework, I will engage with Amartya Sen’s capability approach and Judith Butler’s social ontology of precariousness to provide a theoretical background through which the complex position and lived experiences of the people that legal empowerment initiatives try to empower will be addressed in the discussion part of this dissertation. In this part I will explain the concepts capabilities, functionings and precarity.

2.2.1 The capability approach

In recent decades, the capability approach has emerged as the leading theoretical framework to evaluate people’s well-being, human development, and inequality (Clark 2005: 2). The capability approach argues that a person’s well-being is to be understood in terms of what people are able to do and who they are able to be (Robeyns 2005: 94). This foundation is a critique on other approaches of well-being that focus on subjective categories, such as happiness or desire-fulfilment, or on material means, such as income, consumption, and wealth (Clark 2005: 3; Robeyns 2005: 94). The capability approach is a broad normative framework and, for the purpose of this dissertation. I will only focus on the main conceptual and theoretical aspects as developed by the economist and philosopher Amartya Sen (e.g. 1985, 1993, 1999, 2004).

A key distinction Sen makes in his theory, is the distinction between so-called ‘functionings’ (achievements) and ‘capabilities’ (opportunities). Functionings can be understood as ‘beings and doings’. They describe the different states of human beings and activities that a person can undertake (Robeyns 2005: 95). Beings can vary from basic things such as being well-nourished, being educated, and being able to work, to more complex achievements such as being part of the community, being respected, being happy, and being a good mother. Examples of the second group of functionings, doings, are donating money to charity, drinking alcohol, travelling, and voting in an election. Specific functionings are valued by specific persons. Functionings are therefore unique for each person and form an important part of that person’s identity (Benjaminsson 2014: 16).

Capabilities, on the other hand, refer to the opportunities a person has to achieve desired functionings, that is, to undertake the activities and actions that they want to engage in, and to be who they want to be (Robeyns 2005: 95). For example, while donating money to charity is a functioning, the real opportunity to donate money is the corresponding capability. It asks whether people who want to be healthy, are able to be healthy, and whether the means that are necessary for this functioning are present (e.g. access to health care, adequate sanitation, clean water). What is ultimately important is that people have the capabilities to do what they want to do and to be who they want to be (ibid.: 95).

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Consequently, the process of development is seen as the process of expanding the capabilities of people (Sen 2005: 497).

According to Sen, the achievement of functionings is influenced by three groups of ‘conversion factors’. These conversion factors influence the degree in which a person can transform a means, such as goods and services, into a capability and a functioning (Robeyns 2005: 98-99). The first group of conversion factors are personal factors. Examples of these factors are individual level of intelligence, physical condition, and skills such as reading. If we take a car as an example of a good, we can see that a person who is in a bad physical condition, or a person who has never learned how to drive a car, will be limited to transform the car into, for example, the functioning to be mobile. Social factors form the second group. Examples are social norms, power relations, gender inequality, and discrimination. A dominant societal culture that imposes the legal or social norm that women are not allowed to drive can make it more difficult or even impossible to use a car as a good that enables the corresponding functioning. The third group are environmental factors, this includes for example geographical location and climate. Think, for example, about the lack of asphalt roads and the difficulties that this will impose to become mobile even though a car is available.

In sum, when assessing someone’s personal well-being, we need to take into account 1) the wide variety of functionings that can be important for an individual, 2) the person’s capabilities to be who he or she wants to be and to do what he or she wants to do, and 3) the unique profile of conversion factors. The capability approach is thus strongly influenced by human diversity; we truly need to get to know a person and the circumstances in which he or she is living to evaluate someone’s well-being. Previous mentioned concepts and their interrelatedness are shown in a simplified form in Figure 1. The means available to a person influence the capability set, and the capability set leads to functionings (what the person is able to do or who he or she is able to be). The ability to effectively transform available means into capabilities is, in turn, influenced by conversion factors (individual, societal, and environmental).

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Legal empowerment as a means towards effective capabilities

When considering legal empowerment from a capability approach, legal empowerment can be understood as the process of creating means through which vulnerable people can enhance capabilities. Legal empowerment somehow draws on this framework when considering ‘the poor’ as those who are deprived of their capabilities or opportunities to exercise and effectively claim their rights. To put it simply, legal empowerment initiatives focus on those who lack opportunities that hinders their ability to use the law. Conversion factors (individual, societal, and environmental) can then be seen as the cause of limited capacities or abilities. To illustrate, if a woman’s functioning is to have secured rights over her land, legal empowerment initiatives can create legal and other means (such as legal literacy training, representation opportunities, or in this case paralegal services) to increase the opportunities of this woman to access land rights. However, even if previous means are provided, these legal empowerment efforts could be constitutively hollow if this woman is not able to transform these means into a functioning because of a low educational level or unfair legal chances.

2.2.2 A social ontology of precariousness

When we talk about unequal distribution, we normally talk about the unequal distribution of, for example, resources, food, and wealth. However, one can argue that capabilities or opportunities are also unequally divided across the world. To further explain this, I will use the concepts ‘precariousness’ and ‘precarity’ as defined by Judith Butler in her studies Precarious Life (2004) and Frames of War (2016). Precariousness refers to earthly vulnerability shared by all human beings including the privileged, whereas precarity refers to the particular vulnerability to which the poor or marginalised are imposed (Watson 2012: 1). All human beings face suffering, illness, and death (precariousness), but some human beings are more exposed than others (precarity). So while precariousness is equally shared by all; precarity is differentially spread (ibid.).

The concept ‘precarity’ is defined by Butler as “the politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support” (Butler 2009: 25). Consequently, those who live a life in precarity “are at heightened risk of disease, poverty, starvation, displacement, and of exposure to violence without protection” (ibid.: 25-26). Precarity is a lived condition for many people that characterises our contemporary world. It is a social and psychological condition of being that is structured by social, material, political, economic, and cultural differences. Precarity is close related to concepts such as ‘vulnerability’ or ‘marginality’. However, I prefer to use Butler’s concept of precarity because it includes all conditions that expose particular individuals or groups at risk of vulnerability (Spencer 2014: 87). This helps to better understand the conditions under which certain individuals or groups experience harmful forms of vulnerability and the effect of

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this on these people (Spencer 2014: 87). Instead of presuming that we are all individual sovereign and some individuals possess an inherent individual weakness that puts them at risk of victimisation, our lives and bodies are impacted upon by the world around us, including broader social, economic, political, and environmental structures (Spencer 2014: 88; Szörényi 2014: 29).

In sum, this literature review shows that legal empowerment emerged in recent years as an alternative to and critique on the rule of law orthodoxy. Instead of focusing on dominant gatekeepers at the demand side of the law, legal empowerment adopts a bottom-up approach that places the end users of the law, that is, ordinary people who make laws meaningful on a local level, at its centre. Despite some differences on the meaning of specific terms, we can state that legal empowerment initiatives thrive to protect and advance the rights and interests of citizens. An important element is that the agency, voice and power of the legal empowerment service users are not denied in the process. They remain at the centre of the programme while being supported. While adopting a capability approach, we came to a broad working definition of legal empowerment that will be used in the continuation of this dissertation. This definition considers legal empowerment as the process of creating means through which people can enhance capabilities. The final part of the literature review further examined who the people are that legal empowerment initiatives focus on by adopting the concept ‘precarity’ from Judith Butler. Legal empowerment initiatives focus on those who are deprived of their capabilities, and are therefore more vulnerable than others due to many external factors.

2.3 Research methodology

As indicated in the title, this section presents the research process of this dissertation. This includes a detailed explanation of the research design, the methods of data collection, a justification for the choice of method and an analysis of ethical considerations. This section also briefly discusses the researcher’s background and the implications of a researcher on qualitative research in relation to interpretation and reflexivity. Finally, constraints and limitations of this study will be examined.

2.3.1 Research design

This dissertation explores the extent to which OSM as a legal aid initiatives adheres to the legal empowerment paradigm and whether the provision of legal aid also contributes to the enhancement of other (non-legal) capabilities. The purpose of this study is to understand key stakeholders’ perceptions, experiences and behaviour and to use these to answer the research questions. According to Denzin and Lincoln (2011) the chosen research methodology is dependent on the nature of the research questions and the subjects that are being investigated. The research method could also be

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seen as a tool to come to an answer on the formulated question. To give an answer to the main research question of this dissertation, a qualitative research approach was chosen. Due to the interpretative and multifaceted nature of qualitative research, a holistic picture of the topic can be provided. Qualitative research is exploratory and descriptive in nature and is therefore applicable to study the different voices of different stakeholders. It allows readers to understand the meaning, behaviour and impact attached to experiences (Meyer 2001).

In this dissertation, interviews are used as the main method of data collection. Semi-structured in-depth, face-to-face interviews with clients form the main source of data. The interviews usually lasted between sixty and ninety minutes each. A face-to-face interview method was chosen to actively interact with clients and to observe non-verbal behaviour during the interview. The semi-structured interview method gave participants space to express their own voices and experiences while imposing some prior categorisation. This also allowed to get a better understanding of the complexity of the situation. The questionnaire used for the client interviews can be found in Appendix A to give the reader an idea of the nature of the interviews and the questions that were asked. In addition to the client interviews, interviews were held with volunteers, social workers and lawyers. These interviews were structured and lasted between fifteen and thirty minutes. They were usually held over the phone or on Skype. The questionnaires used for these interviews can be found in Appendix B, C and D. All interviews were recorded and fully transcribed.

All stakeholders were selected based on the assumption that they are experts in the topics inquired into and therefore hold the information needed to answer the research question. For the in-depth interviews with clients, a criterion sampling method was used. All client participants had to fulfil the following criteria:

- Human trafficking victim in general, and victim of sexual exploitation in specific (both male and female);

- Time of support received is at least a minimum of one year during the B8 procedure or a minimum of half a year during the B9 procedure;

- At the time that the interview takes place, the period of support is no longer than three years ago and not less than three months ago.

If contact details were still accurate, clients that met these specified criteria were directly approached by the project coordinator of the Red Cross. If this was not the case, we first approached the associated volunteer, social worker, or latest organisations that had been in contact with the specific client. A second round of sampling took place based on the ability of clients to contribute to the research and their willingness to share their experiences. After the client interviews, the corresponding volunteers

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were contacted to ask to contribute to this research. The particular volunteers that we approached for this study were therefore dependent on the clients that were already interviewed. A random purposive sampling was used for the interviews with social workers and lawyers. Those who actively engaged within the programme of the Netherlands Red Cross were randomly selected and approached by email. The number of participants interviewed for the purpose of this dissertation was predetermined. In total, this study includes data acquired from 36 interviews: 10 interviews with social workers, 10 interviews with lawyers, 9 interviews with clients, and 7 interviews with volunteers. Due to practical reasons (mainly time and the limited availability of respondents) the desired number of 10 clients and 10 volunteers was not reached. However, the data already reached an acceptable saturation point and it therefore does not seem to limit the findings. All the interviews took place within a period of three months.

2.3.2 Ethical concerns

Given the importance of ethics in conducting research and the vulnerable position of some of the respondents, several ethical considerations were taken into account in this dissertation to make sure that the research was conducted in an appropriate manner. Close supervision in this matter was provided by the coordinator and project leader of OSM, two thesis supervisors (one from the Netherlands Red Cross and one from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), and an experienced researcher. All decisions were always extensively discussed with these persons to make sure that the research was in line with ethical guidelines.

From the start of the research it was extremely important to make clear that this research is not related to clients’ experiences of sexual exploitation. This was explained during the first phone call from the OSM coordinator to clients, in the confirmation email, and at the beginning of every interview. The research purpose and goal (to assess the impact of the OSM programme) was always explained and participants had the opportunity to ask any questions regarding the research. The first three client interviews were conducted in collaboration with an experienced researcher.

All participants gave either written or verbal consent to participate in this research and to record the interview. To make sure that clients understood what they agreed to, a simple, yet all-including consent form was made. This form was always extensively discussed before the start of the interview. If clients had any doubts, for example if they did not feel certain whether they agreed with the interview recording, they were allowed to give consent after the interview. The consent form can be found in Appendix E. The form explains to the participant that information remains confidential and their stories anonymous. The same applies to all other interviews. The form states that participants are able to withdraw their consent at any point during or after the interview. It also explains our way of data

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storage. Data is no longer stored than for the purpose of this research (for a maximum of one year) and a secured programme is used to store any information to prevent unlawful processing.

All clients were interviewed at a venue and time of their choice to create a safe environment. Interviews took place at their homes, a Red Cross venue, or another public place (e.g. university). The interviews were conducted in Dutch, English or another language if preferred by the client. If the latter was the case, an on-demand phone interpreter service was used (de Tolkentelefoon). In the light of empowerment, it was important to make sure that contributing to this research would be a positive experience for clients. It gave them the opportunity to be taken seriously, to express their voices, and to contribute to the efficiency of this programme by providing their opinion on a service they experienced first-hand.

2.3.3 The role of the researcher

Within qualitative research, the researcher is often seen as part of the research methodology as the researcher plays an integral role within all stages of the research process (design, interviewing, transcribing, data analysis etc.). The subjectivity of this research and the background of the researcher therefore needs to be taken into account. The researcher of this dissertation is me, Manon, a 24-year-old Dutch student and young professional in the field of humanitarian action. I h24-year-old a bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology and a master’s degree in religion, conflict and globalisation. My bachelor’s in anthropology allowed me to gain experience in conducting interviews from the beginning of my academic career. As an interviewer I always find it important to not adopt the position as an ‘expert’ during an interview and to allow interviewees to talk easily and to create an emphatic connection. I prefer to consider listening as a way to increase power and confidence of those listened to, and therefore also a way to reverse the role of expert and client. This is also in accordance with the broader topic of empowerment of this study.

2.3.4 Constraints and limitations of this study

This dissertation was part of a broader impact assessment of the OSM programme that I am conducting for the Netherlands Red Cross. The interviews were used for both studies and, therefore, only part of the interview questions were specifically asked for the purpose of this dissertation. If the interviews would have been completely dedicated to this dissertation, the acquired data might have been more inclusive. Second, as previously explained in this section, this is a qualitative study and all data was gathered by the researcher. To limit the influence of potential biases, decisions were always collaboratively made throughout the entire research process. This also includes decisions on which interview questions were going to be asked and how they would be formulated. To limit biases, it was

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important that respondents knew that I was not working for the Netherlands Red Cross and to stress that I therefore held a neutral and independent position. However, during interviews it became clear that some respondents did consider me as being part of the Red Cross programme (for example by saying ‘you are doing an amazing job’, instead of ‘the Red Cross is doing an amazing job’). The potential of biases can therefore never completely be prevented. Especially the data analysis process was largely dependent on the researcher’s views. Any other researcher would have made different choices on what to include and where to focus on. Also, all individuals that were interviewed agreed to participate in this study. One can argue that those who have had bad experiences with the Red Cross might not agree to participate in a study like this. Lastly, the number of interviews conducted for this study is limited. This number does not allow to make generalisation for the different stakeholders that were involved in this study, nor does it give an extensive variety of responses on what legal aid entails and what the impact of legal aid is on communities. Hence, the analysis might have been strengthened by providing a holistic view on legal aid, including perspectives from all stakeholders involved.

2.4 Case study

As previously explained, this dissertation applies the concepts legal empowerment, legal aid, capabilities and precarity to a legal aid practice from the Netherlands Red Cross (NLRC). More information on this practice will now be provided. In 2009, the Netherlands Red Cross started a programme named Support to Victims of Human Trafficking (Dutch: Ondersteuning Slachtoffers Mensenhandel, OSM)) to offer individual legal and practical assistance to foreign victims of human trafficking in the Netherlands during their residence permit procedure(s). Over the years, the Netherlands Red Cross supported 196 clients from various countries, the majority of them sexually exploited women, in the regions Utrecht/Amersfoort, Groningen, Drenthe and Rotterdam (NLRC 2018).

The goal of the OSM programme is twofold (NLRC 2019: 18, 19). First, with the help of this programme, victims of human trafficking should be able to fully obtain their right to aid and protection. This means that victims are able to meet the requirements of the legal procedures in relation to human trafficking, that they obtain knowledge on legal procedures, and that they have been given the opportunity to tell their whole story of exploitation. Second, victims of human trafficking should become self-reliant within legal procedures. They should know what procedures are about, know where they can go and who they can approach if they have legal questions, and they should actively participate in legal procedures. These two goals contribute to a higher goal which is to prevent and contain the consequences of human trafficking.

The Netherlands Red Cross works with volunteers who offer one-on-one support to clients. Red Cross volunteers do not obviate the roles of lawyers or social workers by any means, they rather act as

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a bridge between external (legal) actors and clients. In recruiting volunteers, the Netherlands Red Cross looks for individuals who have an educational or professional background in law or social-legal services and have relevant experience in working with vulnerable migrants. Volunteers are mainly females under the age of thirty. During a six-hour training programme they learn about the basic tenets of the residence permit procedures in relation to human trafficking and their tasks and responsibilities as a Red Cross volunteer. Each volunteer receives a comprehensive 92-page document that functions as a workbook and provides an introduction to human trafficking, information on residence permit procedures in relation to human trafficking, and an overview of the role as a Red Cross volunteer. It also contains practical tips and guidelines, such as tips on efficient coordination of tasks with other stakeholders involved and guidelines on ethical concerns (e.g. volunteer-client relationship, privacy issues). Other additional material for volunteers is provided at an online database which includes guidelines for safety reports and the embassy protocol. Besides the basic training programme, each volunteer is required to follow a one-day training in communication and conversation techniques, and attend seven intervision meetings per year during which practical cases are addressed and volunteers can learn from each other’s competences and experiences. During these meetings, guest speakers are sometimes invited to talk about a certain topic (e.g. PTSS). Volunteers are asked to be available up to eight hours per week for assistance, training, and meetings.

2.4.1 Residence permit procedures in relation to human trafficking

Although this dissertation is not written from a legal perspective, I will provide some basic information on the residence permit procedure based on human trafficking before I continue with the data analysis. In a nutshell, after the report to the police, any victim of human trafficking receives a B8 temporary residence permit. This permit is valid for one year and allows them to stay in the Netherlands as long as the police investigation lasts. If the investigation lasts longer than one year, a victims of human trafficking can request an extension up till three years. After the B8 residence permit, victims of human trafficking can apply for a continued residence permit; the B9 residence permit. This is a non-temporary permit victims can apply for in three different situations: 1) if the investigation lasts longer than three years, 2) when the offender of human trafficking is prosecuted, or 3) when return to the country of origin is impossible due to special individual circumstances related to the experienced exploitation. The IND (Immigration and Naturalisation Service) decides whether the B9 permit will be granted or not. If the B9 residence permit is not granted (either in primo, objection or appeal) the applicant can opt for an alternative residence procedure (e.g. asylum), return to his or her country of origin, reside in the Netherlands on irregular basis, or travel to a different (European) country.

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Chapter 3: Results and data analysis

3.1 Clients

Victims of human trafficking who were supported through the OSM programme are the main individuals addressed in this dissertation. This chapter focuses on 1) how victims perceive the legal aid offered by the Netherlands Red Cross, 2) the extent to which they were/wanted to be involved in legal procedures, and 3) what they valued most about the received support. Throughout this chapter, it is important to keep in mind that the analysis derives from the voices of people and therefore entails an intrinsic complexity to interpret data acquired from qualitative interviews. Before presenting the analysis, the study provides an overview of the characteristics of the individuals interviewed to provide some context of the voices analysed in the succeeding sub-sections.

3.1.1 An overview of the clients

This chapter presents an analysis of the voices of nine clients who agreed to participate in this research. All clients are victims of human trafficking, six female and three male, who were sexually exploited in the past. The sample age-range extends from 20 to 53 years, with a concentration of victims from the age of 29 to 38. Clients are from Guyana, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Suriname and Albania. Three of the nine respondents have been granted a continued residence permit based on human trafficking (B9), a residence permit based on asylum has been granted to four of them, and two of them are still waiting for the outcome of their asylum request. As previously explained, to be selected for this study, the period of support had to be at least half a year, however, seven out of nine clients received support for over a year. In most cases support was given by one volunteer throughout the entire time period. There are some exceptions when clients moved or when volunteers could not continue their work. In these cases, a new volunteer was assigned to a client.

3.1.2 A need for legal-practical support

The transcript analysis shows that clients’ perceptions on volunteers’ main tasks more or less corresponds with the tasks as described in the OSM programme description. As explained by clients, volunteers translated and explained letters1_{, provided information and advice on procedures,} accompanied them to lawyers, the IND (Immigration and Naturalisation Service) and embassies, helped to get a passport or birth certificate, collected information for the safety report, helped the lawyer with

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his/her work, helped communicate with the lawyer2_{, made phone calls, re-read important documents,} and delivered letters3_.

During the interviews, it became clear that legal-practical support was not only given but also much needed. All clients explained that they needed help to understand and follow legal procedures. Legal procedures were generally perceived as “very difficult” and the support of the Red Cross volunteer was needed to gain at least a basic understanding of what was going on. An illustrative response is: “It would have been very, very difficult for me [if the volunteer would not have been there]. I would have been like a blind person that does not know the way to the toilet. […] She was the only one helping me”. Another client explained: “You have to know how deep the water is before you jump into a river”. For him, going through these procedures felt as if he had to jump into the unknown. His volunteer made sure that he knew what to expect and what to prepare for. These quotes show that volunteers played an important role to familiarise clients with legal procedures, a role that was often not fulfilled by anyone else.

All clients believe that the Red Cross volunteer contributed to a better legal case. Some even question whether they would have been granted a residence permit if the volunteer had not been there to support them. Even clients who have not been granted a residence permit do believe that the Red Cross could not have done more for them to make their case more successful.4_{The Red Cross “did their} part” and is “really, really good”.

3.1.3 Client involvement and tasks

All clients expressed the importance to have at least a basic understanding of what was going on within the procedures. Examples of typical responses are: “No one wants to be in the air. You always want to know what is happening. I was always curious.” “Of course I want to know what was happening, because it is about me. So yes.” And: “It was very important because I like to know what is going on so I know what I can do and what I can expect in the future; that is very important”.

Results show that all clients wanted to be involved in procedures. Some stated that it is their procedure, they are the ones who want to be granted residency, so they have to undertake steps themselves. Although all clients wanted to be involved in the process, the question on their role and tasks to meet legal requirements (e.g. arranging a passport or delivering a safety report) did made clear that differences exist in the extent to which they wanted to be included in the process. This varies from

2_{C03: “Sometimes I wanted to talk to my lawyer, but I can’t speak Dutch and he did not understand too much}

English, so it was difficult for me. So she helped me a lot in that place.”

3_{C04: “The volunteer was like a courier. She brought documents and letters from the IND to me. […] She sent}

letters. She arranged that the IND would get the documents that they needed.”

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a client who wanted to keep full control throughout the entire process, to another client who was satisfied with having a basic awareness of what was going on. I will present these differences through three examples:

Example 1: A young independent mother explained how she successfully managed to arrange a new passport from her country of origin. It was, in her words, an easy task for which she first had to make a phone call to Brussels. She made this phone call in English, her first language, and explained that she needed a new passport. She asked how much that would cost and which steps she had to take. Next, she had to download specific online forms, fill them in, and send them to Belgium. “I wanted to do this myself”, she explained. She made clear that for her this is not an example of how she wanted to keep control over the procedure, but rather represents her identity.5_{She describes herself as someone who}

always liked to be independent and do things on her own.

Example 2: A single, English-speaking mother of two preferred to get help from her volunteer during all steps within the legal procedure. She explains that she did not do anything by herself. This, however, is something she experienced as positive. She was, and still is, experiencing a lot of stress that makes her forgetful. She repeatedly explained that it is all too much for her – “too much stress”, “too much thinking”. This seems to affect her both mentally and physically. Her volunteer was there to make things easier which was something she really needed at that moment. It is her wish to become an independent woman one day. Right now, she is awaiting the decision of her asylum application. She will continue to wait and pray to God for a good outcome for her and her children until the day of the decision comes.

Example 3: Another mother, currently living alone in an asylum seeker centre, faced many fears during her legal procedure. These fears are associated with her situation in the Netherlands and her families’

situation in her country of origin because of her refuge. As a result, the Red Cross volunteer and social worker usually assisted her with all the tasks to meet procedural requirements. What she did do herself, was to contact her family in her country of origin to collect relevant information needed for her identity documents. This, however, did not work out which had consequences for her engagement in the rest of the procedure:

Interviewee: What I had to do by myself was to contact my family to ask them to help me

to get information. That is what I could do by myself. […] It didn’t work out.

Interviewer: How was that for you, that it didn’t work out?

Interviewee: It was a feeling that you get when you are expecting the positive and you get

the negative.

Interviewer: Did that influence your decisions later on to not do things yourself anymore?

Interviewee: Yeah. I didn’t know what to do next. I just didn’t know what to do next […]

and I remember a time that I almost gave up.

Interviewer: Why did you want to give up?

Interviewee: Because I tried, and nothing was really coming out.

These examples show some of the differences in the role, tasks and involvement of clients in legal procedures. Other clients explain that sometimes it was “hectic” or “too much” to do things by yourself, while another client remembered the moment that he went to Amsterdam by himself to get his

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passport which gave him a positive and proud feeling6_{. One can see that different factors influence the} process of involvement and active involvement can have a different impact on clients. These factors include differences in personality, level of confidence, psychosocial well-being, fear, and feelings of failure.

3.1.4 Decision-making, feelings of control, and consent

According to clients, they were always included in decision making processes and never felt like the volunteer acted on their own behalf or without their consent. The main task of volunteers was to inform clients. Volunteers always did their best to explain everything what was going on in the process. Decisions were eventually made by the client or the lawyer, not by the volunteer.

All but two clients felt like they were in control of things. A common response was: “The volunteers did not take control over things, they guided me. Guiding is something completely different than taking control”. The reasons that were mentioned by the two clients who did not feel like they were in control are lack of knowledge, language barriers and health problems. One client explained: “I think the way you offer support is really nice. The only thing is that you need to explain the procedures very clearly to a person. I knew enough, but I did not really know how it works. I did not feel like I controlled it.” The other client, a mother of one explained:

That feeling [of insufficient control] is the result of being in a different country. I did not know the language well, I was not financially stable, and my health was not good so I was not strong physically either. […] I struggled to understand things, to understand how things function and work. […] The volunteer did her best to explain everything and tell me how things work and what was to be done. But I feel like because of the problems with the language and because I did not exactly know how everything worked, I did not have enough control over the process.

Both clients explain that the main reason why they did not feel in control is related to the struggle to understand how things work. Lack of knowledge, insufficient explanations, language, and health are some of the impeding factors.

Although all clients stated that volunteers always asked for their consent, a critical analysis of the interview transcripts shows some small instances which are worth mentioning in the context of legal empowerment. During the interview, a question was asked concerning consent and decision-making to accompany clients to the lawyer, IND or embassies. All clients stated that they agreed to this decision.7

6_{C08: “The volunteer helped me to request a passport in Amsterdam, but I had to pick it up myself. I did that}

myself. I was very happy that I did it. I did that myself.”

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However, when one client was asked about the reason why it was important for her that her volunteer went with her to the IND, she answered the following:

Interviewee: No, it was not .. It was not that I did not want her to come with me, but she did ask every time .. I am not going to say no.

Interviewer: Why not?

Interviewee: Because .. it is nice of her that she wants to come with me. But in the end, she was not allowed to come with me in the room, and my lawyer was there as well, so yeah.

Later on, she explained that she did enjoy the company of her volunteer, especially because it created some distraction and it was nice to have someone to talk to on the way to the IND. However, one could conclude that the client did not feel confident enough to say no to her volunteer.

Another example shows how a volunteer sometimes came to her clients’ house unannounced. Due to medical and psychological reasons, the client was not capable to handle things alone and she liked it that her volunteer “went after things herself”. However, she does tell that sometimes it was difficult for her when the Red Cross volunteer came to visit her:

Because of my situation and illness, I often felt bad and sometimes sad and depressed when the volunteer came by. If I am very honest, sometimes I was not in the mood. […] She was the one coming to me. I did not call or ask her to come by. Sometimes her visits were too much because I was not feeling well, psychologically, but also physically.

This quote shows that there were moments that the volunteer would come to her house when she was not in the mood for her visits. The client did not send her away and explained that she appreciated it that the volunteer took initiative, however, this does not necessarily mean that she gave consent to the visits of her volunteer.

A final example comes from one of the respondents who explained that her volunteer was amazing and did her work really well, but it did happen sometimes that the volunteer asked her to sign a letter or form while it was not clear to the client what it was about. She explains: “She did ask me sometimes to sign something that was important, but If I did not read it well myself or I did not see what it was about and it was not clear, I felt like I was failing a bit”. From these three examples the conclusion could be draws that although all clients felt like the Red Cross volunteer never did something they did not agree with, some small instances can be found that a client did not seem to feel confident enough to go against the volunteer.

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3.1.5 Additional support

Besides legal-practical support, all clients mention examples of support that exceeded volunteers’ main tasks and responsibilities. These include: a volunteer who took her client occasionally out for a coffee, a volunteer who helped her client to find LGBT organisations to meet new people, a volunteer who helped her client to find her partner through family tracing services, a volunteer who assisted her client with Skype to get into contact with her sister and son in her country of origin, a volunteer who gave her client a bible which she needed for church, a volunteer who brought her client flowers when she just got out of surgery, and a volunteer who attended the wedding of her client.

These moments of additional support are by seven out of nine clients chosen as the most memorable moment during the time they received support from the Red Cross. Two illustrative examples are:

The moment that was most memorable for me was the moment when I just got out of surgery. Except for my son, no one came to visit me and the fact that [the volunteer] came by unannounced with a bunch of flowers.. That moment meant a lot to me. It gave me the feeling that beautiful people still exist. […] It was perhaps the first time I laughed after four or five days after the surgery. It felt like someone from my family had come by. It really gave me a feeling of happiness.

Interviewee: Sometimes we would go for a coffee or we talked about something different than just the legal procedure. […] We would drink something at Hema and we would have nice

conversations.

Interviewer: Why was that important for you?

Interviewee: Because it was nice. It was not like “because it is my work and I don’t care”. If someone does something because she likes it and because she cares about the other, then I like it too. Not like “it is my work”. […] You can also say “I care about you”, “how are you?”. You are doing your job because you like it. I am happy to work with such people.

These examples show that although the support given by Red Cross volunteers is legal-practical in nature, it are those moments when main responsibilities and tasks are exceeded that are most valuable for a large majority of the clients.

That volunteers’ role includes more than providing legal-practical support becomes even clearer when looking at how clients describe their relationship with their volunteer. A majority of the clients see their volunteer as a friend, a sister, or a brother8_{. They were there for them during an} extremely difficult time, to give them hope, relieve a bit of their stress, alleviate pain, and restore their

LEGAL EMPOWERMENT THROUGH LEGAL AID