'Establish women-friendly socio-legal system'

Speaking at a discussion, they said neither the social attitude nor the legal system is helpful for establishing the rights of women.

The discussion on 'Monitoring strategies to prevent violence against women' was organised by Naripakkho, an NGO, at the Cirdap auditorium in the city.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

"Most of the police and people have a misconception that the women who go to police stations with allegations must be bad," said Advocate Habibun Nesa, coordinator of a pilot project titled 'State Activities Monitoring to Stop Violence Against Women'.

The project, undertaken by Naripakkho, has been monitoring the activities of some police stations and health complexes on their dealing with the women victims when they approach for help since 1998.

Habibun Nesa said many of the police officials are not skilled enough to record the first information report (FIR) on women victims properly hampering the legal procedure.

Advocate Kamrunnahar, project manager of Naripakkho, said doctors are also not sensitised enough to provide medico-legal reports of rape victims.

On the other hand, the women are also not interested to have a check-up by the male doctors due to social reasons, she added.

Kamrunnahar demanded appointment of female doctors in all thana health complexes.

Many victims are also deprived of justice due to their age complexities as they don't have birth certificates, said Tahmina Rahman of Oxfam.