A new grammar of justice that restores, not punishes

What does justice look like when the verdict is delivered, but the woman is still broken? The current system often fails survivors of gender-based violence. The formal, colonial-era court process can be a retraumatising labyrinth. It is alienating, slow, and focused overwhelmingly on a single question. That question is not “How is she?” It is “How do we punish him?” In this punitive model, the survivor becomes a witness for the state. Her needs are secondary to the legal process. Her healing, her safety, the restoration of her dignity—these are afterthoughts. We need a new grammar of justice. We must build a system not on punishment, but on restoration and community accountability. We must learn to speak a language that mends, not merely sentences.

What if justice asked the survivor what she needs, instead of telling her what she will get?

This new grammar of survivor-centred justice begins by centring the survivor. It asks different questions. It asks, “What does the person who was harmed need to heal?” It demands, “How can the harm be repaired?” It insists, “What does safety look like for her now?” This approach, restorative justice, does not ignore the crime. Instead, it treats the crime as a violation of people and relationships. It is not just a transgression against the state. It is a more demanding, more profound form of justice. It seeks to make the perpetrator truly confront the human cost of his actions. It forces him to look at the fracture he caused, not just at the sentence he might receive.

Can a courtroom, built on procedure, ever truly hold a human scream?

Imagine a different process. It is facilitated by trained community elders. The survivor, supported by her chosen circle, speaks her truth directly to the person who harmed her. The goal is not a guilty verdict handed down by a stranger in a robe. The goal is a concrete, actionable plan for repair. This plan could include the perpetrator covering all medical and counselling costs. It could mandate the transfer of property to the survivor for her long-term economic security. It requires a public apology to her and to their shared community. It binds him to a monitored behaviour change programme. The community, in turn, takes formal responsibility. It supports the survivor’s recovery. It ensures the perpetrator’s compliance. Justice becomes an active verb performed by the people, not a passive noun declared by the state.

Is it harder to face a prison cell, or the eyes of your own mother as you account for your cruelty?

This is not a soft alternative. It is often far harder for a perpetrator. Sitting passively in a distant courtroom is abstract. Sitting in a circle with his community, with the woman he has harmed, is brutally concrete. He must hear her pain in her own words. He is held accountable by the people whose respect he craves. This transforms justice from a remote transaction into a tangible process of communal healing. It forces the community to shed its complicit silence. It makes everyone an active participant in creating a safer social fabric. No one can look away. The community must decide what it values more: a false peace or a real reckoning.

What does safety cost, and who should be forced to pay the bill?

The punitive system externalises cost. The state pays for the prison. The survivor pays with her ongoing trauma. Her family pays with their grief. A restorative model seeks to internalise the cost to the one responsible. The perpetrator pays for the counselling. He pays for the broken door. He pays for the school fees he made her miss. This is not about monetary payment alone. It is about a fundamental principle. The person who creates harm must bear the primary burden of repair. It moves justice from a concept of debt to society to a practice of direct obligation to the survivor. It makes responsibility material and immediate.

Can a system that isolates the crime ever address the ecosystem that enabled it?

The courtroom isolates the act of violence. It separates it from the cultural norms, the familial silences, and the community gossip that allowed it to flourish. A restorative circle brings that entire ecosystem into the room. It examines the broken relationships. It questions the uncle who said boys will be boys. It challenges the aunt who advised the woman to pray harder. It forces the community to see its own role in the architecture of silence. The process is not just about one man and one woman. It is about diagnosing and treating a sickness in the body of the community itself.

What good is a prison sentence if she returns to a village that still blames her?

True safety is not created by the removal of one man. It is created by the transformation of his environment. When a community collectively designs a safety plan, when neighbours agree to check in, when elders pledge to rebuke harmful behaviour, the survivor is protected by a living network. This is sustainability. A prison sentence has an end date. A community that has publicly committed to a new standard of conduct offers a different kind of security. It offers the promise that she can live where she is, free from shame and threat.

Who ensures the community fulfills its obligation to hold a perpetrator to account?

This model places a profound responsibility on the collective. It is not an escape from difficult decisions, but a full embrace of them. It demands robust facilitation, clear safeguards, and absolute commitment. It is not applicable in every case, particularly where extreme danger persists. Where it is possible, however, it offers a powerful, culturally-grounded alternative. It leverages the weight of kinship and social ties not to suppress truth, but to enforce it. The community transforms into both jury and bailiff, responsible for rendering the verdict and ensuring its execution.

When we speak of justice, are we describing a fact in a ledger, or a feeling in a home?

Our current grammar describes a fact. A verdict. A sentence. A case number. The new grammar of restorative justice must describe a feeling. The feeling of being believed without question. The feeling of walking through the market without whispers. The feeling of sleeping through the night without a lock pressed against the door. It measures success not in years served, but in peace attained. It recognises that true justice is not achieved only when a man is behind bars. It is achieved when a woman can sleep safely in her home. It is achieved when her children are provided for. It is achieved when her community collectively affirms that what was done to her will never be tolerated again.

It is a grammar that speaks the language of life, not just of law. It is learnt not in law schools, but in circles under trees, in community halls, in the difficult, sacred space between a question asked and an answer given. It begins with a single, radical shift. We must stop only asking what he deserves to lose. We must start asking what she needs to live.