Women’s Access to Justice in the Plural Legal Systems of Myanmar

With the growing recognition that laws and justice systems are not adequately working for women, Justice Base led a research report to examine women access to justice in the formal and informal processes, decision-makers and institutions that play a role in resolving dispute involving women in Myanmar. Traditional dispute mechanisms are often preferred by women because of the high cost of the state legal system, corruption, gender bias, and language barriers for ethnic minorities who are non-Myanmar language speakers. However Women face inadequate normative protection due to legal, institutional and sociocultural barriers. Customary practices lead the women to frequently disregard legal issues or drop cases especially regarding domestic violence or sexual abuses because of discriminatory norms and the negatives social impacts for women who pursue redress due to believes that consider that these women lost their dignity.