FUNDED BY: British People through UKaid

SUPPORTED BY: Maxwell Stamp (PLC). British Council and Center for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), through Community Legal Services (CLS) program

IMPLEMENTED BY: Green Hill

Basic Information:

Project name: Sustaining Humanitarian Initiative through Knowledge, Social Harmony and Accountability (SHIKHA)

Project duration: April 2013 to March 2017 (4 years)

Funded by: UKaid

Project status: Phased out

Project goal/objective: To ensure fair, pro-poor and gender sensitive delivery of justice through the traditional justice process and formal justice system for all in tribal communities.

Purpose: To improve the traditional justice process and increase access to formal justice system for women and other vulnerable community people in the CHT.

Geographical Coverage:

Implementation strategy:

Major achievement:

Throughout the project life cycle, Green Hill produced a good number of achievements that is follows

• The project intervention have reached nearly 65000 people around legal rights issues through deploying different awareness activities especially awareness sessions at village (2508 sessions) and school (22 sessions), organizing indigenous people theatres (54 events), observing international (Women day, human rights day and VAW) and national days (Legal Aid day) as well by placing billboard (11) containing messages on legal rights information. By these awareness interventions, people come to know about basic legal rights issues and where to get legal services while they were unknown before the project intervenes in these geographical locations.
• 246 numbers of Headman and Karbari (traditional community leaders subject to 1900 CHT Act) have been capacitated around customary law and state law with special focus to VAW, child marriage, stocking, maintenance, dowry, legal service institutions etc. To enhance their knowledge on customary and state legal issues, total 18 numbers of residential trainings have been organized for the traditional leaders as well 4 numbers of learning exchange visits also facilitated in Rangamati and Bandarban Districts. Followed by these capacity building efforts, those leaders are now following in documenting their customary legal practices which were less visible before the project intervenes.
• 375 numbers of people have received legal services through referral services of Green Hill by different legal service points specially DLAC, BLAST, VSC, customary legal service points and law enforcement agencies. Among them, 146 service recipients have been provided direct legal advice by the delegated advocate of Green Hill.
• Total 22 numbers of destitute women is receiving increased income followed by the livelihood support of Green Hill’s SHIKHA project. Each of them has been given a non-refundable grant support to invest in the income generation purposes. Most of them have invested those grants on livestock, a few in agriculture and some in sewing.
• The project intervention has stopped more than 34 child marriage incidents in the project areas with the legal assistance of local administration as well community based informer.

Major learning and Challenges:

Throughout the project life cycle, Green Hill gained a good number of learning and faces a few of challenges that is follows

Learning:

• Lack of awareness is the key barrier for legal service seeker. People who oriented and aware about their legal rights is taking legal service through Village Court, headmen and Karbari Court, ULAC, UZLAC, BLAST, DLAC. Legal awareness program should be increase at village level.
• Workshops play a vital role to reach a well coordination among different stakeholders at various levels. It also contributes to uphold project performance. Since the inception of the project, Green Hill still failed to get membership to DLAC – Rangamati, but after a Upazila workshop at Longadu, the Honourable District Judge provide verbal consent to include Green Hill as associate member to DLAC from next DLAC meeting with formal declaration.

Challenges:

• Indigenous people found less comfortable to claim legal service to formal judicial system while they remain silent and sometimes go to traditional court to seek remedy even for non-compoundable offences. This attitude is letting them to depriving of getting justice as per state law.
• Panel lawyers of DLAC-Bandarban unwilling to claim court fee due to lengthy process of maintenance. As result, legal service seekers to DLAC sometimes get deprived of getting legal assistance due to want of financial solvencies.
• In entire Chittagong Hill District, there is no Family Court. As result, legal service seekers face difficulties to lodge complaints in this matter. DLAC-Bandarban is totally unwilling to handle complaints related to family court due to absent of Family Court. In Rangamati, considering people sufferings, delegated lawyers usually uses a reference to shift these types of complaint to join District Judge Court.