The law just made it harder to get justice for domestic abuse
If you're a Bangladeshi woman, unfortunately married to a monster who believes "dowry" is just another word for "marriage subscription fee", felicitations, the government has just gifted you a shiny new hoop to jump through before you can get justice. It's called the Legal Aid Services (Amendment) Ordinance, 2025, but I like to think of it as the "Loading After Six Months Ordinance". Previously, if your husband slapped you around because the fridge your parents gave him wasn't the latest model, you could march directly to court under Section 11(ga) of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, 2000. That little section—bless its dry, legal bones—made "simple hurt" for dowry demands a criminal offence, punishable by two to five years in prison and a fine. Simple hurt is the legal term for injuries that don't need an ambulance but still ruin your day (or life).
But that was too straightforward, wasn't it? In Bangladesh, we don't like our women rushing into rash things like bodily agency and justice. Now, thanks to this ordinance, before you can even think about seeing the inside of a courtroom, you must toddle off to a legal aid officer and sit through mandatory "mediation". Yes, you read that right. As in, "let's sit you and your abuser at the same table with tea and biscuits, and see if we can't sort this little misunderstanding out." This is the part where the legal scholars will gently remind us that mediation is a noble tool of alternative dispute resolution—quicker, cheaper, less adversarial. True. Mediation works wonders when you're disputing a property boundary or who gets the family farmland. It works less well when the "dispute" is over how many times you can be slapped before dessert.
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Because here's the thing: mediation assumes both parties are negotiating on equal footing. It's difficult to negotiate when one party is holding a legal baseball bat and the other is holding a police complaint that has now been reduced to a nice discourse with a government officer. The Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, 2000, was drafted precisely to bypass the foot-dragging of social compromise. It recognised that in cases of violence against women, every delay is an opportunity for threats, coercion, and "family honour" lectures from your in-laws. And yet here we are dressing up delay as due process. Of course, the official reasoning will be wrapped in the warm, fuzzy language of "reducing case backlogs" and "encouraging reconciliation". Because nothing says "healthy reconciliation" like a woman being told to patch things up with the man who bashed her head into the cabinet. I imagine the mediation script will go something like this:
Legal aid officer: "So, why do you think your husband hit you?"
Victim: "Because I didn't bring enough dowry."
Husband: "No, no, she misunderstood. I was merely expressing my cultural expectation through physical emphasis."
Officer: "Well, sounds like you two just need better communication skills. Case closed!"
The absurdity would be funny if it weren't so dangerous. Dowry-related abuse is not a polite marital disagreement; it is a criminal act under Bangladeshi law. Section 11(ga) is not there as a suggestion; it is a statutory recognition that "simple hurt" in dowry cases is serious enough to warrant direct prosecution. The ordinance, however, slyly moves that first step behind a locked door labelled "Mediation Only". From a purely legal standpoint, this amendment undercuts the deterrent effect of the original act. Criminal law is supposed to send a message: commit this act, and you face swift, punitive consequences. By inserting mediation as a compulsory prelude, the state has effectively told perpetrators, "You've got one free round. Use it wisely."
It's also a triumph for the quiet backroom pressure of patriarchy. No need to lobby against women's rights openly—just tinker with the procedural requirements until the rights become too cumbersome to claim. Rights, after all, are only as useful as the ease with which you can exercise them. And let's not forget the dangerous precedent: if mediation-before-prosecution becomes the norm in dowry abuse, why not extend it to other charming cultural traditions? Acid attacks? Arson over land disputes? A quick cuppa and a chat should do the trick. I can see the legal textbooks of the future now: The Doctrine of Compulsory Forgiveness, nestled comfortably between Mens Rea and Natural Justice. Law students will learn that in Bangladesh, justice is no longer blind; she's been sent for counselling before she can file an FIR.
Supporters of the change will no doubt point to "false cases" as the bogeyman. Yes, false allegations exist. But they are rare. And it is not unicorns that send thousands of women to hospital wards each year. The original law already allowed courts to dismiss frivolous cases. This amendment doesn't target false complaints—it targets all complaints, genuine or not. What's perhaps most galling is the timing. In a country where women's rights are already teetering between tokenism and tolerance, this ordinance is a step backwards disguised as procedural refinement. And because it's cloaked in the language of legal aid, the untrained ear might even believe it's progressive. It is not. It is the legal equivalent of a doctor telling you your broken leg will heal faster if you take a nice, long walk first.
So, here's my modest proposal: if we must have compulsory mediation in criminal acts against women, let's make it fair. Everyone who voted for it should first spend a weekend being "simply hurt" in the name of dowry and then see if they're in the mood for a polite chat. If they still think mediation is the best way forward, I'll personally draft the thank-you note to the legal aid officer. Until then, let's call this amendment what it is: a legal waiting room for women's justice, where time ticks away, bruises fade, and the only people truly protected are the ones holding the dowry receipts.
Barrister Noshin Nawal is a columnist for The Daily Star. She can be reached at [email protected].
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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