Issues in Women's Rights

A key challenge facing the overall women's rights scenario in any remote region like Northeast India is availability of trained lawyers in local courts to assist the aggrieved women to fight their rights violation cases or otherwise guard their interests in a dispute. Such legal services, embracing both individual access to justice and public interest law transcending individual needs, contribute to the rule of law, good governance, human rights, empowerment of the poor and poverty alleviation. The women's rights lawyers need special training and set of professional tools for forging the future of legal services and legal systems. In order to address this gap, a special training workshop was organized by PFI Foundation, Guwahati in February, 2012. This resource book is an outcome of that exercise. It may be used as a Women's Rights Lawyers' Handbook or a manual which is readily available for adoption by law schools to conduct similar programs and also act as a ready-reckoner for the lawyers, police officers, administrators, corporate human resource managers and chief executives of organizations. The contents of the resource book contains training materials used at the training workshop, individual research studies by the authors and a compilation of some important reference documents from different sources. The book mainly covers issues like social security legislations, free legal aid, constitutional remedies, marriage laws, separation, divorce, maintenance, offences of dowry, violence against women, rights at work place, sexual harassment at work place, Vishaka Guidelines, etc.