Disability and the Global South, 2021 OPEN ACCESS Vol.8, No. 1, 1892-1909 ISSN 2050-7364 www.dgsjournal.org © The Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License 1892 Invisible to the Law: COVID-19 and the legal consciousness of persons with disabilities in Bangladesh Arpeeta Shams Mizan a* a University of Dhaka; Simulation Director, ELCOP (Bangladesh). Corresponding Author- Email: amizan.law@du.ac.bd Despite disability rights being recognized through formal legislation in Bangladesh, the rights of persons with disabilities are still not effectively ensured. State interventions during the pandemic have not sufficiently accommodated the rights of Persons with Disabilities. Pre-existing social prejudices have added to their plight. Due to social prejudice and myriad access to justice challenges, persons with disabilities in Bangladesh face negative attitudes when it comes to exercising their legal rights. The article uses primary data obtained through qualitative interviews and secondary sources to illustrate how the Covid19 pandemic has reinforced structural discriminations and increased the vulnerability of persons with disabilities. Keywords: Disability rights, Bangladesh, legal consciousness, COVID-19, social model of disability Introduction : Marginalizing the marginalized during the pandemic Persons with Disabilities are already marginalized in the larger society, but socio-cultural neglect adds on to their plight, which can be best described with the famous quote from Manik Bandopadhyay: ‘…poor within the poor, low lives amongst the low-lives’ (Bandopadhyay, 1936). The government of Bangladesh has formed a national Needs Assessment Working Group (NAWG) to provide the humanitarian intervention for COVID-19 uniting government and non- governmental humanitarian agencies and managed by Care Bangladesh’s ‘Supporting Bangladesh Rapid Needs Assessment (SUBARNA) Project’ (NAWG, 2020: 2). The NAWG identified vulnerable groups that include persons with disabilities. Field reports show how the multi-sectorial interventions need targeted flows of services (NAWG, 2020: 2), because having persons with disabilities listed as target groups is not enough unless agencies ensure basic human rights principles of enhancing respect, ensuring accessibility, ensuring