The Centre seeks to further the development of the discipline of Women’s Law and to enhance research capacities and scholarship in conjunction with all its cooperating partners, in particular with the Institute of Women’s Law at the University of Oslo.
The major component in meeting these objectives is the running of the Masters in Women’s Law and the Master’s in Women’s Socio-legal Studies at the University of Zimbabwe. Further the Centre undertakes training, teaching, research and publication in Women’s Law, socio-legal and Human rights issues and the promotion of academic capacity building and networking with regional and international partners both within Universities, NGOs and Governmental Organisations. So far masters students have been pooled from ten countries namely, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, DRC, Botswana, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and lately from South Sudan. They have been able to share experiences from their various countries. As of 2009, SEARCWL has initiated PhD studies. So far SEARCWL has registered 7 successful DPhils and the centre has supervised to completion one Dphil from the University of Zimbabwe Department of Sociology.