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Survey on the Poor

Unaware of rights, action

95pc unable to lodge FIR, 73pc general diary

Staff Correspondent
Ninety-five percent of the country's poor population do not know how to lodge a first information report (FIR) or a case while 73 percent are unable to file a general diary, reveals a recent survey.
While the poor and marginalised people, especially those in the rural and hard-to-reach areas, prefer local justice system, known as Salish, and other community level arrangements to formal legal system, 68 percent respondents have no idea about the District Judge's Court.
The preference for alternative dispute resolution (ADR) has sprouted because these people not only want to avoid the expensive and complicated formal legal system of the country, but also have a low confidence in the exist-
ing justice delivery system.
The picture of this shockingly poor awareness among the country's destitute people about legal issues, human rights and its implication has been exposed in the Perception Study- 2013 of Community Legal Service (CLS). The CLS programme is a five-year project supported by the DFID, the UK government's aid programme, and seeks to empower women and marginalised people to access equitable justice and defend their rights.
Copies of the study's executive summary were provided to journalists at a programme titled "National Conference on Access to Justice through Partnership with Government Legal Aid and NGOs" held at a city hotel yesterday.
The CLS and the National Legal Aid
Services Organisation (NLASO), a Bangladesh government initiative to provide legal aid services to the poor, jointly organised the programme.
The survey interviewed 2,400 respondents from the same number of households in 19 districts of all seven divisions between August and October 2013.
Twenty-seven percent of the respondent families were categorised as the poorest (earning less than Tk 6,000 a month) while 59 percent poor (earning Tk 6,000-10,000 a month) and 14 percent marginally poor (earning Tk 10,000 or above a month). Of the respondents, 75 percent were female. The average age of the female respondents was 34 years and of the male 42 years.
According to the study, about 62 percent people acknowledged the
existence of family disputes and found dowry, family disputes, child marriage and polygamy as the main legal issues of their communities.
Forty-three percent respondents had faced one or more legal problems and women were often the main victims of these.
Again 43 percent people said local elected representatives were their first choice to get family disputes solved, followed by community leaders, formal legal system and the police.
Seventy-five percent respondents knew nothing about the legal process regarding divorce while 85 percent had very little idea about the dower law.
Though, nearly 92 percent respondents were familiar with ADR/Salish, as far as justice seeking behaviour is concerned, in 65 percent cases, family members did not seek any type of available legal options.
Addressing the programme, Law Minister Anisul Huq, however, said the current government undertook "extensive measures" for the development and promotion of legal aid programmes for the poor.
Terming it "a mammoth task" to provide the poor and marginalised people with free legal aid, he sought cooperation from non-government organisations, civil society members and donors in this regard.
Law Secretary ASSM Zahirul Haque; Richard Butterworth, senior governance adviser and governance team leader of the DFID Bangladesh; NLASO Director Syed Aminul Islam; and CLS team leader Hector D Soliman also spoke at the programme.