In order to identify the barriers that prevent women from claiming their rights, to get better knowledge and to formulate recommendations aimed at improving women’s access to justice, KARAT conducted a pilot study which focused on the exemplary type of women’s rights violations – on denying women access to abortion services that are legal under the Polish law.

These violations are unrecognized by the society and law enforcement in Poland, and thus extremely difficult for women to address through using the legal remedies. In this case justice seeking becomes a real challenge which women usually do not dare to face being aware that it would lead to breaking a socio-cultural taboo and to the consequences that might have a heavy impact on their lives.

This report is a part of KARAT’s regional initiative on women’s access to justice that has been implemented in Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Poland since 2010 in the context of the CEDAW Committee’s decision to elaborate General Recommendation on the theme.

Published by KARAT, 2012.

Download the report in English “Women’s Access to Justice in Poland. Analysis of the barriers hampering access to justice for women who were denied the right to lawful abortion“