Flavia Agnes

Recognition In August 2018 Power Brands awarded Flavia Agnes the Bharatiya Manavata Vikas Puraskar for being a beacon of hope for millions of marginalized and disenfranchised women and children – giving them voice and strength to fight back, for her contribution to feminist jurisprudence, human rights law and gender studies in India, and for the work of her organisation, Majlis.

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.

Agnes then completed an LLB in 1988 and began to practice law at the Mumbai High Court. She later completed her LLM from Mumbai University in 1992. She received an MPhil from National Law School of India University, Bangalore (NLSIU) in 1997. For her thesis, which was later published by Oxford University Press, she worked on law and gender equality, examining the politics of personal laws in different religious communities, particularly those affecting women.

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. Flavia Agnes began working in the field of women in law in the 1980s, which was at the beginning of the second phase of the women's movement, and since 1988, Agnes has been a practicing lawyer at the Mumbai High Court. Her own experience with domestic violence inspired her to become a women's rights lawyer. She also advises the government on law implementation and currently advises the Ministry of Women and Child Development in Maharashtra. Along with Madhushree Dutta, Agnes is the co-founder of MAJLIS, meaning 'association' in Arabic, "a legal and cultural resource centre" that campaigns for and provides legal representation for women on issues of matrimonial rights, child custody etc. Since its inception in 1990, MAJLIS has provided legal services for 50,000 women.

Prior to her marriage, Agnes had only completed her SSC exams. Agnes' greater involvement in the women's movement led her to study further to obtain meaningful employment, live independently and secure custody of her children. As a result, Agnes completed the Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey Women's University (SNDT) entrance exam and completed a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Sociology with Distinction in 1980.