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Flavia Agnes (born 1947) is an Indian lawyer, women's rights activist and feminist scholar. She has been practicing at the Bombay High Court since 1988. She is considered an expert in the field of marital, divorce and property law. Several of her articles about jurisprudence, and legal rights of minorities and women have appeared in journals like Subaltern Studies, Economic and Political Weekly and Manushi.

She is also the co-founder of Majlis, a Mumbai-based legal and cultural resource centre, along with Madhushree Dutta. Majlis provides legal aid to poor women in marital disputes. Majlis has also made films, plays and artwork about religious minorities and xenophobia. Flavia Agnes is also a consultant with Rahat, a joint initiative of the Department of Women and Child Development, Maharashtra, and Majlis. Rahat provides counseling and legal aid to victims of sexual assault.

Early life and education
Flavia Agnes was born in Kadri, Mangalore. She grew with her aunt as her parents were abroad. She and her four sisters attended a girls school. After completing schooling, she joined them. But after the death of father and aunt, she returned to India. Afterwards, she got married at the age of 20 and moved to Mumbai. At the time of her marriage, she had only complete her high school education. She had an abusive marriage. Later in a 2012 interview, she said that she had no contact with the opposite gender before her marriage, "I didn’t know that marriage was all about beating and oppression." After thirteen years and having three children, she decided to divorce her husband. However, at that time divorce of the basis of cruelty was not allowed for Christians. So, she filed for a judicial separation.

After her separation, she decided to become a lawyer. She left her children with her husband since she had no money. She stopped using her husband's surname and decide not to use her father's surname either, and choose a surname herself. She went to SNDT Women's University and completed her graduation in 1980. In 1984, she published her autobiography My Story…Our Story. In 1992, she completed her Master of Laws (LLM) in 1992 from Bombay University, following which she did her M. Phil in family law from National Law School of India University, Bangalore.

Work
In September 1996, Flavia Agnes filed a complaint against lawyers who were marrying inter-religion couples in suburban Mumbai under the Hindu Marriage Act. The Hindu Marriage Act does not have a one month waiting period and such inter-religion marriages were void unless registered under the Special Marriage Act, but the lawyers were collecting big fees for such marriages. Following the complaint, the police arrested 23 people involved in the scam.

On 27 June 2002, Flavia Agnes filed an affidavit before the Nanavati-Mehta commission demanding that the cases involving the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots should complete in fixed time period. She said that the women were being denied rehabilitation and forced to withdraw their complaints.

On other issues
In 2005, she criticised the Maharashtra government's decision to ban dance bars saying that it denied the women their livelihood.

In 2014, she supported actress Preity Zinta's criminal complaint against ex-boyfriend Ness Wadia and condemned people claiming Zinta was being vindictive after a bad breakup.

She has opposed death penalty for rape cases, as it will cause rapists to kill their victims. According to her, it will also make victims reluctant to report rape if committed by someone known to them. She has disagreed with the death penalty given to three accused in the 2013 Mumbai gang rape.

Books

 * with Madhusree Dutta and Neera Adarkar,
 * with Sudhir Chandra and Monmayee Basu,
 * co-edited with Shoba Venkatesh Ghosh,
 * with Sudhir Chandra and Monmayee Basu,
 * co-edited with Shoba Venkatesh Ghosh,
 * co-edited with Shoba Venkatesh Ghosh,
 * co-edited with Shoba Venkatesh Ghosh,
 * co-edited with Shoba Venkatesh Ghosh,
 * co-edited with Shoba Venkatesh Ghosh,