ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the use of public interest litigation (PIL) as a strategy to address violence against women in Bangladesh, and its potential and limits. In terms of specific statutory protections against gender-based violence, colonial-era legislation has been supplemented by a raft of special laws, carving out exceptions to the general criminal law. PIL has been undertaken in relation to incidents of gender-based violence in the context of forced marriage, forced veiling, sexual harassment in educational institutions, stalking, forced evictions from slums, forced evictions of sex workers and survivors of mass rapes in the Liberation War. The Court thus shifted focus from interpreting religious law to a secular exercise of identifying the legal and constitutional protections available against acts of gender-based violence resulting from the issuance of fatwas. After several internal discussions and consultations, including a review of medico-legal evidence collection guidelines in other jurisdictions, the Ministry drafted a new set of Guidelines on Medico-Legal Evidence Collection in Rape Cases..
