The Lantern of Legal Literacy
BRAC

Women across Bangladesh face discrimination as a resultof their social subordination to men in a long-established patriarchal society. Access to a holistic set of services and provisions such as livelihood, property, and basic amenities such as food, clothing, shelter, essential healthcare and primary education are often denied to
women due to age old prejudicial religious and customary practices. Weak
implementation of formal laws and legal structures add to this dilemma. As
a result, women’s mobility and participation within their communities are
restricted and their voices muted when seeking claims to equitable rights.
Legal education is a bridge to legal empowerment for poor and vulnerable communities such as poor women in most communities. Bangladesh
is not an exception. Via this nexus of poverty and education, awareness of
the laws and the legal system creates an opportunity for these groups to use
their new found knowledge and helps women organize themselves to defend
against social prejudice and violations that occur within their own homes
and localities. In this way, these marginalized populations are transformed
into human rights advocates and receive respect and dignity within society
in recognition of their unique roles.
There are a host of non-governmental organizations (ngos) working in
Bangladesh on legal empowerment interventions aimed at achieving accessto equitable justice nationwide.
BRAC
Brac began its activities in 1970 with a post-cyclone relief program. Brac
was officially established in Bangladesh in 1972 by Sir Fazle Hasan Abed. It
is a development organization dedicated to the alleviation of poverty by empowering the poor to realize their potential and bring about positive change
in their own lives. Its approach, therefore, is comprehensive with services
in education, health care, social and economic empowerment, finance andenterprise development, human rights and legal aid, agriculture and food51

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H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i csecurity, as well as environmental sustainability and disaster preparedness.
Brac has substantial operations in a growing number of Asian and Africancountries since 2002 including the Caribbean region of Haiti, where it canachieve a major impact on reducing poverty and improving livelihoods.
Human Rights and Legal Aid Services Program
Immediately after the independence of Bangladesh in 1972, it expanded its
focus to include conscientization of the poor, aiming at sensitization regarding the causes of exploitation. In the mid-1980s, brac established the
Human Rights and Legal Aid Services (hrls) Program. Originally known
as the Paralegal Program it was created to defend the rights of poor andmarginalized populations through legal education, legal aid, and supportive
services to realize legal empowerment. The program’s mission is to protect
vulnerable communities from discrimination and exploitation and ensure
equitable access to justice. The hrls program is the largest ngo-led legal
aid initiative in the world.
With the aim of focusing a rights-based lens to human development,
the objectives of hrls are to:• Create awareness on human rights and laws to empower the poorand marginalized through community mobilization and capacity
building• Resolve conflict through legal aid services• Utilize the legal system to reduce violence against women andchildren• Sensitize actors in the legal system in the principles of human rights
and gender justice• Help to build a critical link between government and rights-basedorganizations to energize social action• Work towards institutional reform and implement best practices.
Three-pronged Approach
Hrls promotes a three-pronged approach to service delivery consisting of
the following:
Human Rights and Legal Education - The human rights and legal education (hrle) classes educate women about their legal rights, fundamental

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laws, and existing legal aid frameworks to create the critical mass needed to
oppose injustices.
Community Mobilization - Workshops with grassroots community
leaders are organized locally to increase awareness on gender equality, encourage participation, and develop human rights knowledge. Mobilizing theelite is a first step to reducing corruption and enhancing coordination toprevent structural mistreatment of vulnerable people in both governmentand social institutions.
Legal Aid Clinics - The hrls program has five hundred seventeen legal
aid clinics countrywide. The clinics are a one-stop solution for poor andexcluded community members especially women to receive legal counsel,
have access to alternative dispute resolution (adr), legal coordination andsupport networks. With these resources hrls helps individuals build a case,understand the legal system, and get the comprehensive medical and social
support they need in the wake of an injustice.
The proceeding segments of this article highlight the nature, scope, andpositive impact of the hrls program’s legal literacy model in threading legal
awareness and social behavioral change into the fabric of grassroots communities around Bangladesh.
Human Rights and Legal Education
The hrls program operates a hallmark legal education component titledHuman Rights and Legal Education (hrle) that ignites a legal justice seeking-culture among hrle course graduates. The hrle model was inceptedin 1986 with a cadre of barefoot lawyers. These barefoot lawyers, known
in Bangla as Shibikas or volunteers, are trained as instructors of the legal
awareness classes. They travel off the beaten path from village to village andimpart legal education to grassroots communities mainly women. The legal
literacy course teaches Bangladesh Constitutional law, criminal law, Muslim
and Hindu Family Law, Muslim and Hindu Inheritance Law, ChristianInheritance law, land law and also portrays the functionality of Bangladesh’s
formal and informal legal systems.
a. Current curriculum structure
A new curriculum has recently been developed to shift the paradigm froma purely legal literacy focus to one of rights articulation. This hrle curriculum is held for twelve days.

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The launching pad of the hrle curriculum is a situation or entitlement (such as property rights) around which a discussion of laws, policies
and procedures that support access to justice follows. Some lessons in the
new curriculum include ‘family, society and me’, ‘abuse’, ‘gender discrimination’ in society, ‘legal terms’ such as GD (General Diary), fir (First Incident
Report), etc. The classes also include exposure visits that are meant to demystify government bureaucracy and procedures essential to accessing legal
support and justice. Three high performing participants from each hrleclass are chosen to form a Rights Realization Committee to support community members in articulating demand for property rights. They undertake visits to key government offices. Along with helping demystify government bureaucracy and procedures essential to accessing legal support andjustice, the visits can assist in making these institutions more approachable
for locals.
Table 1: Major contents of the new curriculum
New HRLE Course Syllabus
Day 1
Family and social analysis
Day 2Social discrimination and gender
Day 3
Abuse
Day 4
Basic rights and entitlements
Day 5
Marriage
Day 6
Dowry
Day 7
Divorce, separation, guardianship and custody, post nuptial rights
Day 8
Police duties and jurisdiction
Day 9
Hindu, Muslim and Christian woman’s right to land
Day 10
Opportunities for women to utilize, own and control land
Day 11
Land mutation, tax and khas (state-owned) land
Day 12

Closing day

b. Capacity development
The new teaching methodology, which is undergoing an initial testing
phase, incorporates a problem-solving approach to legal literacy by centering the rights-based curriculum in the context of the social and economic
profile of participants. Class participants are encouraged to identify barriers
preventing them from seeking justice and are guided to think strategically to
overcome them. The hrle Shebikas are being retrained in the new interac-

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tive teaching methodology. These refresher trainings are outlined in greater
detail below.
• Barefoot lawyers participate in refresher trainings based on theirown unique schedules:• Monthly Refreshers are held at field level for one day each month• Yearly refreshers are held at brac Learning Centers for six days.
Daylong and yearly refresher trainings of hrle Shebikas are conductedby hrls field-based trainers. The former is held in either brac’s area/branch
offices and the latter are conducted in brac’s Learning Center’s training institutes. The refreshers are an effective way of standardizing the quality of
the Shebika’s performance and of keeping them updated on current laws.
c. Participant profile
The profile of hrle participants typifies brac’s efforts to work withpoor and vulnerable communities especially women, organize them, create a conducive environment for them to lift themselves out of poverty, andraise their voices against injustice. Hrls selects women from destitute communities who lack knowledge of existing laws and the legal system with ascope to visualize and understand how the legal framework can work forthem. Both brac and non-brac program participants and local community
members participate in the hrle Class.
No learning experience is complete without students being able to apply
their theoretical knowledge empirically. Hrle gives course participants theopportunity to put their legal literacy skills into action. After the completion of the hrle course, three best graduates form an Odhikar Bastobayon
Committee (obc) or the Rights Implementation Committee. These groups
are perceived as human rights advocates as they assist in quelling rights violations that occur within their communities. In this way, both the barefootlawyers and obc members are critical links for accessing justice for humanrights offences.
d. Materials
The hrle class is premised on image-based learning patterns as the
majority of the participants are illiterate. The illustrations are action-based
images that synchronize with each lesson, topic, and sub topic.

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Brac uses a mixed bag of learning materials in the hrle class. The list
below is per class:• 1 Chart (Outlining specific laws)• 1 Poster (Discussing ‘Who am I’ within the greater social context)• 1 Poster (Illustrating the myth that ‘My wife does not work’)• 1 Guide (For use as a resource by the Shebikas)• Pictorial Cards (showing gender perception related scenarios).
e. Activities undertaken
Hrls has continuously implemented its legal literacy program fortwenty-six years. Educational activities had been held in various parts of
Bangladesh, and actions taken by the course participants have run into
thousands, with more than three million community members as participants. Below is a summary of the statistics on activities undertaken throughthe years.
Table 2. Activities undertaken till September 2012
Human rights & legal education classes held
HRLE graduates
Community leaders’ workshop held (union, upazila [sub-district] anddistrict level)
Complaints received
Complaints resolved by ADR
Cases sent to court
Judgment received in favor
Monetary compensation received through ADR and cases

162,516
3,759,330
15,428
182,170
98,43033,524
16,620828,963,376 Bangladeshi Taka (BDT)The Barefoot Lawyers
The hrle has helped community members obtain the necessary knowledge,
skills and attitude on using the law and human rights principles to resolve
the problems they face in their communities. As shown in Table 2, thousands of cases have been received and brought to various forums (alternative dispute resolution mechanisms and courts) and were resolved.
These barefoot lawyers have stories to tell. Their stories provide concrete image of the effect of legal literacy. The stories of two barefoot lawyers,
Alea Begum and Mukul Jaan, provide good examples of the lives and commitment to action of human rights agents working in the hrls program.

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Alea Begum
Alea Begum is a hrls barefoot lawyer from Narayangonj. Her inspiration to become a human rights worker sprang from her struggle to secure adecent education as a child due to her family’s economic background.
To Alea, education and social awareness was the golden thread of social change. Unfortunately, Alea’s hopes of completing her education wereshort lived. When she was studying in Class 6, she was married off as achild. However, this did not prevent her from finishing her studies. With
this conviction, Alea went on to successfully complete her formal schoolingand higher education.
With equal confidence, Alea proved her intellect and talent while assuming versatile roles as a nurse providing first aid within her neighbourhood, as well as an accounts clerk, and a worker at a cooperative society
where she even went on to instruct local women on handicrafts work. Alea’s
first ever exposure to brac came when she became a brac school teacher
by renting out her own home to this institution. Shortly afterwards, Alea
extended her skills to set up a local committee comprising of mothers whosechildren studied at this brac School. At this forum, Alea encouraged members to talk about community-based agendas.
At the time, Alea believed that though she had come this far because
she was educated, literacy alone was not the only key to addressing social
issues and upholding human dignity around her. It was then that Alea took
up training to become an hrle barefoot lawyer in 1999.
As a passionate human rights advocate of the hrls program, Alea not
only imparted legal literacy to rural grassroots women but also proactively promoted mediation of family disputes and prevented rights violations
such as child marriage, domestic violence incidences, etc. from occurring
within the community. Alea’s life-changing experiences did not stop here;
her charisma and unique leadership qualities led her to newer heights when
she was elected as Vice Chairman of the local government’s Union Parishad(Assembly). Under this dynamic role, Alea went on to curb a series of injustices, e.g., protesting against child rape, etc., for which she received acutecriticisms and death threats from locals for daring to act against such culturally sensitive issues. Despite this tumultuous chapter in Alea’s life, she
continues to battle against all odds and work diligently for rural, social, andhuman development.

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Today, Alea lives life with the philosophy that female liberties muststem from one’s own home. With this empowering strength, she believes
women’s lives will change dramatically.
Mukul Jaan
Mukul Jaan comes from Gurudaspur, in the Natore district in northern
Bangladesh. She is a member of the hrls grassroots advocacy network obc.
Mukul Jaan became inspired by the idea of upholding human rights anddignity of destitute people from her neighbors who were either attendingor had completed the hrle course. Mukul’s acquaintences often discussed
the significance of the knowledge they had acquired from the hrle course.
Their level of awareness on laws including formal and informal frameworks,
not to mention their motivation, began to inspire Mukul Jaan towards a
fresh outlook on a community congregating and stopping injustices fromoccurring within their localities. Without any hesitation, Mukul enrolled
into the hrle course.
Mukul Jaan completed the hrle course successfully. She felt happy tohave gotten the opportunity to learn about the various laws of the state andthe legal justice system that is currently in place like her neighbors did.
After Mukul Jaan became equipped with theoretical human rights andlegal awareness from the hrle course, nothing could stand in her path fromapplying this intelligence in vital real life situations. It was an episode on
31 October 2012 that sparked a flame in the hearts of Mukul Jaan and her
fellow obc members, Monwara and Afela. Mukul and her comrades demonstrated their ingenuity in preventing a child marriage from taking placein their community. A student of Class 5 named Rizwana was being forcedby her family to marry. On hearing this startling news, these obc members
gathered themselves together and hastily reached Rizwana ’s house. During
their visit, Mukul Jaan in particular spoke out about child marriage beinga punishable offense. She explained how this crime had dangerous consequences on a girl child in terms of health risks, she spoke of the pitfalls of
stopping Rizwana ’s education, and how this incident will inflict grave psychological trauma on Rizwana.
Despite the obc’s audacious efforts, Rizwana’s family still decided to go
ahead with their daughter’s marriage. The obc’s inability to dodge this violation compelled them to seek a more stolid stance on the mater. Mukul Jaan andher two other obc colleagues sought the Union Parishad Chairman’s guidanceThe Lantern of Legal Literacy

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and assistance to stop Rizwana’s wedding immediately. In the end, this collaborative attempt proved to be successful. Mukul Jaan and the obc’s relentlessefforts to quell this child marriage has given Rizawana a new lease on life. She
has resumed her formal education due to her family’s newly acquired social
awareness against this injustice and is now living in an environment that is
conducive for her to continue leading a happy and healthy lifestyle.
The social implications of this story are that without the hrle course,
Mukul Jaan would not have been able to access legal literacy as a weapon of defense and knowledge. The promotion of legal awareness acrossBangladesh is thus the fruit of hrls vigilant legal empowerment network.
Implementing the HRLE Curriculum: Problems and Remedies
Rolling out the hrle curriculum in all hrls coverage areas around the country has proved to be a mammoth task. At the onset, a host of setbacks were
faced in the smooth implementation of this curriculum that were eventually
vetted and redressed to produce a legal literacy course with maximum quality. These are outlined below.
a. HRLE curriculum fees
The hrle course curriculum fee per participant is bdt 30 (about 30 US
cents). Initially, hrls paid bdt 15 and the rest by course participants. Thisfee translated to income for the hrle Shebikas, which hosted the literacy
course, with bdt 30 earned for each participant. However, the fee proved
increasingly difficult to pay especially for ultra poor participants wishing toenroll into this course. hrls decided not to require the payment of hrle fee
from the participants and paid for the whole the fees instead. The Shebikas
still earn an income of bdt 30 per participant for holding the curriculum.
b. Long course duration
Up until now, hrle classes were run according to the twenty-two-day
curriculum. These lengthy course durations proved cumbersome for participants who were mostly housewives. These women often had to leave theirhomes for long periods of time and travel long distance to attend the hrleclasses. For this reason, participants were irregular and simultaneously wereunable to fully contribute to household income generation incurring losses in livelihood as a whole. Keeping this in mind, the new curriculum was
shortened and now stands at twelve days as outlined above.

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H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i cc. Restricted HRLE participation
In the early days of the program, hrls only enrolled members frombrac’s loan-borrowing groups known as Village Organizations. But since1998, it has encouraged participant intake from all over the country, irrespective of their affiliation to brac.
d. Traditional Mindsets
A patriarchal social structure and entrenched cultural beliefs of local
communities overshadowed the teachings of the hrle course in many of thelocations where these classes were being delivered. This stunted participant
enrollment. Though this critical issue could not be solved overnight, it was
tackled proactively by hrls with the aid of awareness-raising tools such asworkshops with local leaders, law enforcement, local government and nongovernment actors, including community folk, to stress the importance ofhuman rights and legal literacy in seeking equitable access to justice on theroad to empowerment. Presently, hrls Field Organisers (FOs) pay regular
visits to the hrls class sites to monitor the impact of the classes being held
amidst locals. The FOs also interact with Shebikas and course participants
during these sessions to assess the participants’ comprehension levels ofcourse topics and provide due guidance on a participatory and engaging
approach to learning as adopted by hrls.
Final Note
On its 26th year of operations, hrls’ legal literacy model is more robust thanever as it still serves as a versatile tool to spread human rights and legal
awareness to excluded communities across Bangladesh enabling them tobecome the torchbearers of a just society.
The greatest challenge now lies in rolling out the hrle curriculum formen because this requires extensive planning and foresight on pilot areas,target populations, induction of male hrle volunteers to teach solely maleparticipants, etc. Impact assessments of both hrle for women and men needto happen thus providing scope for learning and filling in gaps that will determine smoother legal literacy service delivery. With a dedicated workforce set
in place, hrls is hopeful of a positive response in setting out an inclusive anddynamic approach to legal literacy and community awareness nationwide.