What We Do

Our approach to legal aid is community-centered. We work with different grassroots organizations, including peasant and farmer groups, industrial laborers and factory workers, small fishermen, women, children, minorities, urban poor, and rural journalists. In our casework, we assist in cases of cruelty to women, children, and minorities, as well as instances of torture, organized violence, and gross violations of human rights. Our programs and services include:

  1. Legal Research: Compiling, systematizing, and monitoring laws, policies, pronouncements, and other official acts within our areas of concern.
  2. Paralegal Training Program.
  3. Legislative and Policy Reforms: Helping grassroots organizations formulate and draft position papers, propose legislation, and implement guidelines, bringing them to the attention of appropriate government authorities.
  4. Press-Pressure and Urgent Action: Generating publicity in different media about incidents of human rights violations and sending letters of appeal to relevant agencies.
  5. Fact-Finding Missions: Documenting human rights violations.
  6. Legal Literacy: Publishing handbooks and training manuals on human rights.
Legal Assistance:
We provide legal assistance by offering sympathetic and empathetic legal counseling and direct legal aid through securing bail, filing cases against perpetrators, and engaging in Public Interest Litigation (PIL). Our target group includes individuals who lack access to justice due to their poor economic condition and lack of knowledge.


Direct Legal Aid:
TProviding direct legal support to victims is one of our most visible and sustainable activities. This includes securing the release of victims from jail/custody, filing cases against perpetrators, and engaging in Public Interest Litigation (PIL) to promote and protect human rights. We also provide direct legal aid to file cases against Law Enforcing Agencies (LEA).


Legal Counseling:
We provide legal counseling to victims of human rights violations through integrated legal awareness programs. As legal experts, we offer information about existing legislation and constitutional and international human rights instruments to empower victims.


Fact-Finding and Investigation:
We observe procedures to identify true victims of torture and human rights violations through fact-finding processes. Fact-finding helps build communication and an impartial report for the well-being of victims and serves as a document for justice. We prepare impartial reports by conducting fact-finding missions and disseminate them to concerned authorities.

Urgent Appeal:


Our Urgent Appeal Program is a crucial human rights tool and forms the core of our advocacy efforts. We issue urgent appeals at national and international levels by post, fax, and email based on fact-finding reports. The objective is to disseminate timely and accurate information about individual incidents of human rights violations to a wide audience, building local and international awareness and pressure towards resolution.
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Training, Seminar and Work Shop:

We prioritize capacity building to address critical complaints of human rights violation victims. We conduct training, seminars, and workshops for different professionals, students, survivors, and our staff on human rights, good governance, peace, democracy, and legal empowerment. Additionally, we participate in various training sessions, seminars, workshops, and meetings on legal and human rights as part of our own capacity building.

Symposium Grass root protection of minority rights, JusticeMakers.Ibj.Org, March 16, 2012

 

Lobbying, Campaign & Advocacy:

We lobby for the removal of reservations on several international human rights conventions and the ratification of optional protocols. We conduct lobbying efforts with high-level government authorities and diplomatic missions, exchanging views with professionals nationwide. We also run awareness programs through observance of significant days such as the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, International Women’s Day, World Mental Health Day, International Indigenous People Day, World Human Rights Day, May Day, and World Environment Day, by organizing signature campaigns, human chains, rallies, view exchanges, and roundtable meetings on various issues.

Research:
One of our vital activities is research through constant monitoring of the human rights situation in Bangladesh, which we disseminate through the publication of the "State of Human Rights" report. We publish reports on a monthly, quarterly, and half-yearly basis to motivate government authorities to take necessary actions against perpetrators and to create public opinion against human rights violations.


Documentation:

We operate a documentation center focusing on gathering data on human rights abuses from secondary sources, such as local and national newspapers. We publish our findings in the human rights situation report of Bangladesh. We screen at least 12 national newspapers, several local publications, and news websites daily for reports on human rights abuses, and we compile these articles into binders containing hundreds of clippings. This information is transferred into a computer database in our library. We also collect information directly from local NGOs, network members, fact-finding teams, and victims themselves. Our documentation categories include:

  • Violence against Sexual (LGBTQI+) Minority Individual
  • Death, rape, and torture by law enforcement agencies
  • Violence against lawyer, journalists and human rights defenders
  • Impunity of law enforcement agencies
  • Organized violence by political parties
  • Repression on ethnic and religious minorities
  • Abuse of national security laws
  • Verdicts and executions of death sentences
  • Violence against law enforcement agencies
  • Human rights situation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT)
  • Border conflicts
Publication:
We use social media platforms like blogs and Facebook as tools against human rights violations and for the dissemination of knowledge and sharing experiences related to human rights violations among readers. We publish human rights situation reports monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and annually. Additionally, we occasionally publish leaflets, posters, stickers, handbills, research papers, and books.

Good Governance:
 Ensuring good governance is one of our key focuses. We believe that protecting human rights is impossible without ensuring good governance and vice versa. We organize seminars, symposiums, view exchanges, signature campaigns, and discussions to promote good governance in Bangladesh.

Institution Building:

Prevention is better than cure. We organize unique preventive programs against anti-human rights activities, especially torture by law enforcement agencies and organized violence.



Networking:
We maintain close relationships and cooperation with other human rights organizations, local and foreign embassies, various professionals, and individuals at national and international levels to garner support for the prevention of human rights violations. We meet with local lawyers' associations, doctors' associations, NGO leaders, journalists' associations, and other professionals regularly. We also collaborate with international organizations such as REDRESS in London, IRCT in Copenhagen, OMCT-SOS Torture Network, Amnesty International in London, Human Rights Watch in New York, CPJ, IFJ, GHRD in the Netherlands, AHRC in Hong Kong, IFEX, ACHR in India, CHRI in India, Hotline Asia, and the UN human rights body.

Hot Line:

We have developed a hotline for receiving information about human rights violations quickly from network members, victims, their families, or any other individuals. This hotline is open 24/7, allowing us to initiate actions promptly after incidents occur in the remotest parts of the country. The hotline number is +33 (0)7 83 95 23 15.
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