Breaking barriers: Jamila’s fight for women in Zanzibar’s legal system

Her direct response to how she got where she is now was, “I’m not sure; it just happened.” When you live without limitations, you allow abundance to flow towards you, and you’ll be amazed at how much magic enters your life.

Her windows and doors are constantly open to new experiences, opportunities and challenges.

This is how Jamila Mahmoud Juma began discussing her career and leadership journey. She is the founding member and executive director of the Zanzibar Female Lawyers Association (ZAFELA) and the Zanzibar Gender Coalition.

However, her leadership journey started when she was a child. Her being the firstborn in a family of four siblings automatically made her a leader. This goes beyond the volunteer spirit at school.

“I was never a formal leader at school, but I was a great supporter of the leaders, and I was always in the front lines defending other pupils. I was not ready to see others being mistreated,” said Jamila.

Today, Jamila is a lawyer by profession and a human rights activist, especially for women’s and children’s rights. She has been involved in local and international legal matters and gender-based violence (GBV).

For Jamila, being a lawyer is her childhood dream. “For as long as I can remember, so much so that I don’t remember ever wanting to be anything else,” said Jamila.

She attributes her family values to the fact that both girls and boys are treated equally. Her parents used to work together as government employees, and when they got back home, they also helped each other with domestic chores.

She pursued her first law degree (LL.B., Hon.) at Zanzibar University. She is also a holder of a Masters in Public Policy Analysis and Administration from Peking University, China.

“With more than 20 years of experience in leadership, administration, lobbying, advocacy, and policy analysis, I am self-motivated and very ambitious, with good communication and organisation skills,” said Jamila.

In her role as a gender champion, she supports gender initiatives and creates a dedicated team to support each other in reaching goals.

She also makes creating a creative environment that fosters diversity, inclusivity, and fairness an imperative to understand and implement effective strategies for promoting gender equality.

She also uses her public policy analysis experience to make sure analyses of policies and laws relating to gender perspectives are well attended by working closely with political leaders, religious leaders, and male change agents to change the mindsets of the people towards gender participation and inclusion.

Efforts to brand ZAFELA came up with a lot of leadership growth. She started as a volunteer at ZAFELA, then went on to become a programme officer, becoming who she is today.

“It was important to establish ZAFELA as a platform to help women and children. Through branding ZAFELA, I was able to build my confidence and determine what skills I needed to focus on to move my career,” said Jamila.

She said that at ZAFELA, they have specific programmes aimed at empowering women to champion their rights and become leaders.

The programmes are Girls for Change, Life Skills for Primary and Secondary Schools and the Gender Desk at universities.

Through those programmes, she is happy that a lot of youths trained by ZAFELA as volunteers are now employed at different places. “I am also happy ZAFELA has also been able to document different cases on GBV and the President of Zanzibar, Hussein Mwinyi, officiated the launch. Another success was preparing for the Women Lawyers Regional Conference at the end of last year. It was a very successful conference that put together women lawyers from different African countries,” she said.

She said a lot has been done to make sure women’s rights are well protected.

Just three years ago, ZAFELA took part in establishing awards for the best performers in the fight against GBV at the social level, and the awards are growing every day.

The most challenging part of her work is not getting enough support from some people, even for positive things.

People dwell on the negatives and find a way to pull her efforts down. She keeps soldiering with her initiative despite the challenges.

Commenting on her leadership style, she said: “My leading style is authoritative and participative through collective or sometimes individual involvement in mentorship, discussion, and the decision-making process. We are collaborative and accountable for every moment we make,” she says.

Jamila is also a member of the East Africa Civil Society Organisation Forum (EACSOF), a member of the UN Women Advisory Board, a member of the African Women Leaders Network (AWLN) and a member of the UNDP CSO advisory board. She calls upon other women to take up board opportunities and other opportunities as a way of getting chances to learn and serve the community through leadership.