A CAMPAIGN has been launched to create Africa's first Scottish-style free-to-use law centre.
Solicitors Mike Dailly and Austin Lafferty aim to raise £150,000 to fund the scheme for three years in Cameroon.
The two lawyers believe access to justice will play a huge role in developing the community they have targeted, Bamenda, the capital of the nation's north-west region and a major centre for child trafficking.
The centre will be run by Laura Anyola Tufon, Cameroon's human rights commissioner.
She said: "This project will be a life time reward to our poverty-stricken, legally uneducated and destitute populations in demand for justice.
"It will help curb corruption to a remarkable level as the target populations will be knowledgeable to work to uphold human rights and abusers will be brought to justice. My dream of rights conscious citizens and peace abiding people with ambition to contribute to sustainable development and make life worth living may be met in my life time."
Mr Dailly, who runs the Govan Law Centre in Glasgow, said: "I've already undertaken an extensive scoping project in Cameroon and helped secure initial funding for a Child Protection Unit from the British High Commission in Yaounde, operated by local justice activists in Bamenda.
"That project helped reunite victims of human trafficking with their families. Child and adult trafficking in Cameroon is most prevalent in the north-west region of the country.
"The law centre would help tackle human trafficking, secure criminal prosecutions, recover unpaid wages and protect the rights of women and children."
Austin Lafferty, a former president of the Law Society, said: "There is an overwhelming need and widespread national support for a community law centre in Bamenda.
"Scottish solicitors have trailblazed legal remedies and campaigns which have benefited Scots, and I'd like to see those successes replicated in Africa.
"The project would provide a pilot to demonstrate the value of the model with a view to securing repetition in the country."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article