Know Your Rights
Plain-language legal education on family matters — marriage, parental authority, separation, inheritance and widows' rights — in the languages women actually speak.
Program 01
Muasi Telema ASBL · Kinshasa, DR Congo · since 2020
Woman, rise.
Woman, rise.
Family, stand.
When a woman knows her rights, finds calm, and can provide, the whole family steadies. We are Congolese women jurists helping women and families with legal education, family mediation, psychosocial support, and skills training.
Confidential. Non-judgmental. Non-confessional. Led by women, for women and families. Mwasi telema.
2020
Founded in Kinshasa
06
Founding women jurists
04
Programs, one relationship
02
Provinces — Kinshasa & Bandundu
100%
Non-confessional, non-partisan
Four practical kinds of help, under one roof.
Most organizations offer one. A family in difficulty usually needs more than one — so we built four, around a single relationship of trust. Running through all of them: rebuilding family values, starting from within the family.
Family Mediation
A calm, confidential, voluntary way to resolve family conflict — without the cost, delay and damage of the courtroom — led by trained women jurists.
Program 02Stand Strong
A safe space to carry stress, grief and pressure without breaking — group and one-to-one support, integrated with our legal and mediation work.
Program 03Hands That Provide
Skills and a trade for widows and single mothers — paired with the confidence to use them — so a woman can earn and stand on her own.
Program 04The cost of going it alone is silent, and it is heavy.
Every figure below describes the environment — the DRC and the wider region — not results we claim. Each is sourced.
Rights unknown
The DRC's gender-equality score in law rose from 42.5 (2015) to 78.8 (2023) — but the new laws are shared mainly in French, so many women never learn what they can now claim.
World Bank WBL · ICR Facility, 2023
Justice out of reach
An estimated 5 billion people worldwide cannot get help for everyday legal problems — and women are among the hardest hit.
World Justice Project, 2019
Provision lost
Only about 1 in 10 Congolese women earns a regular salary — so losing a partner can mean losing everything, overnight.
ICR Facility, 2023
Widows dispossessed
Across sub-Saharan Africa, widows are routinely subjected to "property grabbing" — in-laws seizing the home, land and possessions after a husband's death.
UN Women · Human Rights Watch, 2017
Mediation works
An independent analysis of 449 cases found mediation settled about 78% of disputes — faster and cheaper than going to court — and, unlike a court, it can preserve the relationship.
Brett, Barsness & Goldberg, 1996
When a woman is supported
When women are economically empowered they reinvest in their families and communities — children's education, health, local spending. The whole community gains.
World Bank, 2025
These are not our results — they are the reality we work to change.
free to read
Know your rights
Plain-language guides
Marriage · custody · inheritance · widows' rights
rights library · growing
Knowledge that protects
What you don't know, you can't claim.
The law in the DRC changed in 2016 — a married woman is no longer a legal minor. But the reforms were shared mainly in French. Our rights library explains, in plain language, what the law now says about marriage, parental authority, separation, inheritance and widows' rights — and what you can actually do.
Why Muasi Telema
Led by women jurists. Built for real Congolese families.
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Law you can trust
Founded and run by women specialized in Congolese family law — not guesswork, and never a promise of court outcomes.
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Four services, one relationship
Legal, mediation, emotional and economic help that work together — so a woman is supported as a whole person, not a single problem.
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Spoken in your language
We teach and mediate in the language of the home — not only in French — because rights you can't understand are rights you can't use.
A real organization, accountable for its work
We don't inflate our impact. We show the reality — and label our own work honestly.
0
Registered ASBL under DRC Law No. 004/2001 — founded 10 March
0.8
DRC gender-equality-in-law score (2023), up from 42.5 in 2015 — external context, World Bank WBL
0
Integrated programs — labelled Live, Pilot, In Build or Planned, never overstated
— One last thing —
You do not have to carry it alone.