Domestic Violence Law is for Everyone: not lawyers and judges alone

Amrita Mukhopadhyay
PhD candidate, Western Sydney University

The idea for this paper arose from the picture above – a yellow board hanging precariously from the tree with the name of a person, a legal professional, who is authorized to register marriages. This was the only legal contact I could see as I wandered around the streets of Kolkata during the field study for a doctoral trip. I did not know any lawyers, or anyone who knew a lawyer, or who provided legal services, and did not know of any office I could go to obtain a copy of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 (PWDVA).