Activity Report Reporting Period: July 2015 - June 2016 Madaripur Legal Aid Association New Town, Madaripur. Page-01 Contents 1. Introduction 2. MLAA at a glance 3. Overview of the achievement 4. Core Program: Access to Justice and Human Rights (Phase iii) i) Description of the Project ii) Achievement a) Output-1: Advocacy to ensure better access to justice for disadvantaged b) Output-2: Increased capacity of duty bearers to activate local level justice c) Output-3: Access to formal and informal justice system increased d) Output-4: Institutional capacity of MLAA strengthened iii) Problem faced and suggested action to meet the problems iv) Impact analysis v) Conclusion vi) Annexure 5. Other projects a) Activating Village Courts in Bangladesh b) Access to Justice through Community Legal Service c) Improvement of the Real Situation of Overcrowding in Prisons in Bangladesh d) Justice Reform and Corruption Prevent (JRCP) Project e) Promoting Access to Justice through Enhanced Responsiveness and Accountability of Communities and Public Institutions. Page-02 Introduction: Madaripur Legal Aid Association (MLAA), the first legal aid and human rights organization in Bangladesh, established in 1978 started its‟ journey providing free legal aid services in courts to the poor, particularly the indigent. But found the courts too cumbersome to meet the needs of the disadvantaged for getting justice the organization had sailed to alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanism involving community participation to resolve civil and compoundable criminal disputes locally, activating Village Courts & Arbitration Council, human rights education and implement a wide range of awareness and capacity building activity for raising awareness of community people. MLAA initiate advocacy for mass awareness and to reform policies in formal and informal judicial system, with the assistance of other right based organizations, strived to stir the sensibility of the policy makers and duty bearers. MLAA has developed its capacity in technical and managerial aspects as well as upgraded and developed different policies, manuals & modules which contribute to strengthen capacities of its own and others. MLAA has been working for implementing different projects to enhance access to justice in 14 districts including Madaripur, Shariatpur and Gopalgonj. The report focuses a brief portrait of all activities of MLAA. MLAA at a glance Values MLAA believes in integrity, justice, governance, and accountability in the way it works with oppressed, vulnerable and deprived people. MLAA recognizes respects and upholds equality and equity among women and men. Vision A just society where rule of law and human rights is upheld. Mission MLAA will strive to ensure access to justice and legal rights for all people irrespective of sex, cast, creed, religion, sexual orientation, race and those affected by HIV/AIDs through the informal justice processes and formal justice system. Main Objective: Access to Justice increased empowerment of disadvantaged people, particularly women & Children. MLAA Today For the past 37 years Madaripur Legal Aid Association (MLAA) has developed sustainable programs that address the greatest challenges with formal and informal justice system in Bangladesh. Page-03 Since its inception in 1978, MLAA has continued its efforts to peruse people's empowerment, gender equity, good governance and human rights in order to make the justice system and legal services easily accessible and affordable for the indigent. MLAA has made enormous progress at the grass roots level in enhancing access to justice and human rights for the poor people, especially women, in three districts- Madaripur, Shariatpur and Gopalganj. MLAA also provides the same services to the indigent in other districts of the country. Starting its activities with Free Legal Aid program, MLAA has flourished in Mediation, activated Village Court and Arbitration Council, which are dispute resolution mechanisms of local justice system, legal support to reduce overcrowding in prisons, justice reform and advocacy to legal reforms. Overview of main achievement: The achievements of any project are not only reaching the target but to ensure justice from the grass roots level to the national level creating opportunity of access to justice for all. And to address the issue MLAA gave importance in both quantitative and qualitative aspects. The Core Program: Through the project MLAA has been continuing its advocacy initiatives to reform law and policy in formal and informal judicial system. MLAA facilitates advocacy by inviting key players in the justice system, such as lawyers, local administration, local government and UP representatives to discuss common problems and develop a common strategy for addressing the issues. With an aim to encourage relevant stakeholders to identify common problems and for addressing the issues MLAA published two issues of Yugo Chetona (3000 copies), its newsletter focuses on laws and human rights MLAA observed International Women‟s Day with the participation of 310, who were mainly students and teachers of different educational institutions and staffs of other NGOs, with an aim to bring them in a network to disseminate the new trend of human rights. Through the Free Legal Aid program, a total of 831 cases were conducted including 216 newly filed and 615 pending cases from previous years. Among them 171 cases were disposed; of them 33 cases were rejected and the total number of pending cases are now 519. During the reporting period under the local justice program MLAA facilitated to resolve 3040 disputes through mediation. A total of Tk.125,985,500/- was recovered as maintenance and Denmohor (dower), recovery of money and compensation for damage of crops, compensation against injuries and land. Additionally, the Village Courts settled 855 civil and criminal cases in which beneficiaries received an amount of Tk. 78,82,369.00/- approximately in cash and kind which include compensations, recovery of loans & money transactions and price (approximate) of recovered land. Moreover, 475 cases were amicably settled through mutual agreements. The Arbitration Council resolved 350 disputes and through these resolved disputes Page-04 applicants received Tk 33,000.00/- as maintenance. In the above three local dispute resolution systems, 80.86% women were directly benefited. To enhance the capacity of duty bearers MLAA conducted different meetings and workshops for CBO members, religious leaders, activists and teachers & students of Collage & Madras. It reached around 33185 people through organization of 1401 courtyard meetings, 1135 ward CBO meetings, 129 central CBO meetings. To create awareness among the staff and stakeholders on local justice system, human rights and gender issues, MLAA arranged coordination meetings at three stages namely, central, district and thana coordination meeting; total 48 meetings were organized to coordinate the field level activities. MLAA‟s Monitoring team has specific responsibility to ensure transparency in the on- going activities and for institutional capacity building. In the indicator based assessment it has been seen that, in the decision making process 92% mediation decision made through party‟s opinion, 6.66 % decision taken by the board which was made by the parties‟ opinion and 1.33% decision was imposed. It has also seen in the assessment that Madaripur Mediation Model (MMM) has been adopted and implemented as because 62.66% CBO women has been taken part as mediator, 32%CBO men has been taken part as mediator and 5.33% locally mediated. In addition, in the mediation session 34.66% CBO women has been taken part as president of those session. It has also seen in the assessment that 87% decisions made parties abides by and are getting full remedy, 3% getting partial remedy and 10% decision made parties are not abides by. 90% beneficiaries have been satisfied over the decision taken in the mediation. Supplementary Projects : MLAA is currently implementing supplementary projects to augment the work of the core program. Three projects were implemented to expand MLAA‟s local justice programs to other regions throughout Bangladesh. The project „Promoting Access to Justice through Enhanced Responsiveness and Accountability of Communities and Public Institutions‟ is successfully running MMM, VC, and AC in 42 UPs of Bangladesh. The project, “Activating Village Courts in Bangladesh” worked to activate Village Courts in 136 Ups. Another project has also been implemented to increase the community involvement in attaining justice most effectively when the community takes ownership of its own. The project “Community Legal Services” is promoting partnerships between the communities in 70 Unions of 4 districts in Bangladesh. MLAA is also working to reduce prison overcrowding and ensure prisoners are treated in accordance with the law through the project jointly initiated by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Prison Directorate „Improving the Real Situation of Overcrowding in Prison in Bangladesh‟. MLAA has been working in 4 districts Madaripur, Shariatpur, Gopalgonj and Sirajgonj involving 28 paralegals. Page-05 MLAA has been undertaken a pilot project on „Justice Reform and Corruption Prevention (JRCP)‟ with collaboration of Ministry of home affairs of Bangladesh Govt. and Anti-Corruption Commission with a strategy to strengthen of social movement against corruption for promoting good governance in. The project works in Madaripur and Gopalgonj districts covering