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Legal Aid and Women's Access to Justice in Bangladesh: A Drizzling in the Desert

Author Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Law, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, BANGLADESH

Int. Res. J. Social Sci., Volume 1, Issue (3), Pages 8-14, November,14 (2012)

Abstract

Legal aid–a means to promote access to justice–still remains a far cry for the citizens of Bangladesh, especially for women. While an insufficient legal aid funding from the government and other Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) keep many of the poor justice seekers out of this aid scheme, women still remain as the most deprived section compared to their male counterpart. Based on unpublished data on legal aid collected from court and NGO registries of Bangladesh, this paper demonstrated the scarcity of legal aid funding, especially in family cases. It also explained how a scarcity of legal aid may compel women to accept more dismissal and ex parte decrees that affect the quality of justice they get from family courts. Study result implies that channelling government legal aid fund through NGOs may improve the efficiency of distribution in this sector.

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