Caitlin Lambert & Children’s Legal Defense Center (CLDG)
Caitlin Lambert is a human rights lawyer and co-founder of the Children’s Legal Defense Center (CLDC) in Somaliland. With over a decade of experience in international law and criminal defense, she is committed to ensuring that marginalized children, particularly girls, have access to justice. Caitlin co-founded CLDC after witnessing firsthand how children in Somaliland’s criminal justice system often face incarceration without legal support, leaving them vulnerable to unfair trials and harsh penalties.
Since its founding, CLDC has provided legal aid to over 2,600 children, securing the release of more than 1,600 and reducing sentences for hundreds more. The work is painstaking, because lawyers are generally not permitted to enter police stations or prisons in Somaliland, CLDC's team works through daily court engagement, identifying clients when detainees are brought before a judge and conducting interviews in holding cells to begin representation at the earliest possible stage.
With our $500 Giving Joy microgrant, CLDC built the foundation for a gender-focused legal defense unit, starting with direct representation for 10–15 imprisoned girls and young women whose cases involved gender-based discrimination, harmful social norms, and justice-system failures specific to girls.
The goal was both immediate and long-term — secure fairer outcomes for individual clients while developing the gender-responsive legal strategies, internal expertise, and documented evidence needed to make this work sustainable.
The need was far greater than anyone anticipated. Between January and April 2026, CLDC provided legal assistance not to 10–15 girls, but to 41 — ranging in age from 13 to 18. Cases included affray, theft, property damage, defamation, and trading in drugs or alcohol. One case alone involved 21 girls detained following a fight at school.
Because lawyers cannot access detention facilities directly, CLDC's lawyer met clients in court holding cells, conducting interviews, assessing cases, and beginning representation from the moment girls were brought before the court. From there, the team pursued every available avenue: bail applications, challenges to insufficient evidence, and — in many cases — facilitated customary agreements between defendants and alleged victims, which were then presented to the court as evidence that harm had been addressed.
Throughout, CLDC applied a deliberate gender-responsive lens. In cases involving girls charged with trading in alcohol or drugs, for example, the team presented the broader socioeconomic context, particularly girls' limited access to the formal economy, as a mitigating factor. The goal was not only to influence individual sentencing outcomes, but to shift how justice actors understand and respond to cases involving girls.
The Results
Of the 41 girls and young women represented:
32 were released from police or prison custody
26 of those releases were secured through customary agreements facilitated by CLDC
3 had their sentences reduced
6 cases remain open, with representation ongoing
Beyond the numbers, this work is contributing to a measurable shift in how Somaliland's courts approach cases involving girls — one argument, one case, one precedent at a time.
The Impact
For the girls themselves, legal representation meant the difference between prolonged detention and going home. For their families, it meant stability. For CLDC as an organization, the grant has been transformational — generating the evidence, expertise, and institutional knowledge needed to make the case for a permanent, dedicated gender-focused legal defense unit. And for Somaliland's justice system, CLDC's advocacy is slowly but meaningfully broadening how courts understand the circumstances that bring girls into conflict with the law.
CLDC will continue representing the remaining open cases while taking on new ones as they arise. The organization is actively refining its gender-responsive legal model, documenting lessons learned, and pursuing additional funding to build a sustainable, dedicated unit for girls and young women — ensuring that the foundation laid by this pilot becomes a permanent part of how CLDC serves its community.
