Law education
BRAC's
Human Rights and Legal Education: A boon to the rural
poor
Kavita
Charanji
Using
flip charts, cassettes and guidelines, 7, 000 volunteers
working on BRAC's Human Rights and Legal Education (HRLE)
programme, bring legal education to the rural poor. The
aim of HRLE, which comes under the Human Rights and Legal
Service (HRLS) of BRAC, is to keep women Village Organisation
(VO) members abreast of their basic rights and laws in
a formal manner. The reasoning is that vulnerable community
members could use legal awareness to protect themselves
from illegal, unfair or discriminatory practices.
As
Elina Zubaidy, Senior Sector Specialist (Human Rights
and Legal Services) of BRAC Development Programme, puts
it: "Legal awareness is a basic and fundamental pre-requisite
to live a life of dignity. People, particularly in the
villages, are unaware of how to take legal action and
are being exploited everyday--in the family, society,
state and every sphere. If the rural poor are made aware
of their rights they can understand when they are being
exploited. With legal education, they can stand up for
their legal rights and thus gain empowerment."
In
its HRLE programme, BRAC covers 25 lakh people in 61 districts
and 1.40 lakh village organisations (VOs). In contrast
with other NGOs which focus on one or two laws, HRLE runs
a training course on seven basic laws: the Muslim Family
Law, Muslim Law of Inheritance, Hindu Family Law, Hindu
Law of Inheritance, Land Law of Bangladesh, Constitutional
Law of Bangladesh and the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
There
is, on the whole, a low level of knowledge about laws
in the villages. However, some districts have a higher
degree of legal awareness. Among them are Manikganj, Jessore,
Bogra, Rangpur, Mymensingh and Gazipur.
At
the grassroots level, BRAC also has a one-day Local Community
Leaders' Workshop where people at the grassroots level
discuss issues such as an overview of the laws covered
through HRLE classes and the means of ensuring the implementation
of these laws within the local community. As of December
2004, 8,504 such workshops were held.
There
are a number of case studies which throw light on the
impact of HRLE. Take the example of 14-year-old Shirina
Khatun from the Moheshpur upazila of Jhenaidah district.
Desperate to get his young daughter married, her father
finalised her wedding with Abdul Kuddus from Chuadanga.
When the Law Implementation Committee (LIC) members heard
the news, they decided to firmly oppose this move. They
approached the father and told him about an HRLE class
in which they had learnt about penalties resulting from
an early marriageone-month imprisonment with Taka 1, 000
fine. Eventually the members were able to convince him
not to get his daughter married.
These
instances may be a drop in the ocean. But then every tiny
step which can help the poor and dispossessed learn and
stand up for their legal rights is a stride in the proper
direction.
The
author is sub editor, The Daily Star.
