Flavia Agnes

Flavia Agnes is an Indian women's rights lawyer with expertise in marital, divorce, and property law. She has published articles in the journals Subaltern Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, and Manushi. She writes on themes of minorities and law, gender and law, law in the context of women's movements, and on issues of domestic violence, feminist jurisprudence, and minority rights. with her mother and sisters when she was 20.

Personal life Soon after they returned to India, her mother urged her to have an arranged marriage. She also advises the government on law implementation and currently advises the Ministry of Women and Child Development in Maharashtra.

As a lawyer, she is concerned with women's rights, particularly women's economic rights. Her goal is to solve women's inequality and impoverishment within the Indian economic structure, especially regarding property ownership. She acknowledges that some Hindu women were not allowed any property, and other women were allowed a small amount in the pre-colonial and civil time in India under the British law. that campaigns for and provides legal representation for women on issues such as matrimonial rights and child custody. Since its inception in 1990, MAJLIS has provided legal services for 50,000 women.

Recognition In August 2018 Power Brands awarded Agnes the Bharatiya Manavata Vikas Puraskar for her work with marginalized and disenfranchised women and children, her contributions to feminist jurisprudence, human rights law and gender studies in India, and for the work of her organisation, Majlis.

On Saturday, February 10th, Agnes was awarded the 'Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer Lifetime Achievement Award' in Udaipur for her exceptional contributions.

Views Death penalty While death in the Indian judiciary system is handed out in cases described as "rarest of rare", Agnes and her team of lawyers at MAJLIS have been prominent critics of the death penalty and oppose it for all cases. Sometimes their opposition has been controversial, as they opposed it for the accused in both the Nirbhaya case and the Shakti Mills case. Agnes talks of a class bias when it comes to convicting those accused of rape, and points out that as per the rules of Section 376E (which allows death penalty for cases of rape) the accused must be "unrepentant repeat offenders". In both the aforementioned cases, that was not the case and, according to Agnes, this type of judgement serves to "dilute" the 'rarest of rare' premise. Agnes is also against the concept that rape is worse than death or that a woman who is raped is a "zinda laash" (walking dead) pointing out that not only does this concept demean women but if rape is equated with murder, "more women will be killed after they are raped. Even worse, fewer women will report rape, particularly if it is committed by a near and dear one."

Sexual assault of men Agnes has voiced opposition to making rape laws gender neutral, expounding that criminalizing rape of men "harm women more than men" and also said "we [women's groups] opposed it when they made child rape laws gender neutral."

The Global Feminisms Project Flavia Agnes is a part of the Global Feminisms Project, an archive created in 2002 to explore women scholars and activists around the world. The initial Project focused on four countries: China, India, Poland, and the United States, and was headed by the University of Michigan's Abigail Stewart, Jayati Lal, and Kristin McGuire. Three additional country sites (Nicaragua, Brazil and Russia) have been added. The project currently consists of seven countries and 79 interviews. The interviews are focused on the women's experiences and their feminist activism.