Access to justice and the use of legal services are necessary conditions to increase disadvantaged groups’ control over their lives. The Asia Foundation (TAF) has been supporting three major endeavours that display an integrated approach to legal services in Bangladesh. The use of “shalish”, a traditional Bangladeshi approach to dispute resolution, has been adapted by TAF grantees to fit into their integrated approach to the provision of legal services. The involvement of NGOs in shalish has proven to be effective in settling disputes in many communities. But, has this approach had a positive impact in the provision of legal services to women in a male dominated society?
This evaluation from the Sourcebook on Access to Justice explains that corruption, expense, delay, indifference and physical distance of the courts all weigh in favour of settling local conflicts outside the formal legal system. A shalish consists of village leaders (exclusively men) gathering as a committee of sorts to try to settle a local dispute. Shalish that are not organised by NGOs tend to be influenced by patron-client relations and permeated by corruption of various sorts.
One of the main findings of this report is that NGO involvement in shalish has refined and fortified the process by virtue of coordinating it. Nevertheless, for all the strengths of NGO-coordinated shalish in terms of service delivery and accountability, women are left where they started: powerless and alone, their fates in the hands of men. Other findings include:
- NGO involvement with dispute resolution sometimes helps to settle disputes even before a shalish becomes necessary
- The NGO role often continues after the shalish process ends. If no resolution is reached, the NGO may take the opposite party to court
- Under some circumstances shalish is not an option. Severe cases of domestic violence are not solved by mediation but by suing or seeking the prosecution of the offender
- As long as NGOs rely on the same traditional leaders to preside, the shalish, even if they are wise and objective, traditional attitudes will probably make them biased against women.
NGOs are operating within a society in which adolescents are thrown together and told to spend the rest of their lives together, and in which many women are treated as a combination of property, liability and whipping post. Changing attitudes in this context might be extremely difficult. However, policy pointers to face this situation include the need to:
- Allow and encourage women to attend the sessions and defend themselves
- Involve more female staff in the provision of legal services.
