KATHMANDU, NEPAL – Nearly 40 protesters gather every Monday at the gate of the District Administration Office, the hub of local government activities in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital. They hold signs that read: “Down with Dominance of Women,” “Stop Women Violence” and “Justice to the Victims” in Nepali.
The protests began back in December 2012 after Nepalese immigration and police officials gang-raped a young woman here, says Ishan Basnet, a protester.
Authorities dismissed four immigration and police officers, says Mohna Ansari, a member of the National Women Commission, which the government established to improve gender equality and justice. The court found the police constable involved in the rape guilty in April 2013, sending him to jail for five years and charging him 50,000 rupees ($525). Two other immigration officials involved fled after posting bail, and the court has yet to deliver a verdict for the last immigration official.
The 19-year-old rape survivor has kept her name anonymous, but the media and public know her under the alias of Sita Rai. After working abroad illegally in Saudi Arabia with a false passport for four years, she flew back to Kathmandu in November 2012, the 19-year-old says. Immigration officials arrested her for having a fake passport, and the next day, they took her to a private lodge.
There, the four men raped her and stole her money and belongings, she says.
“I was threatened by those government personnel not [to] tell anyone about the incident,” she says.
After returning home, she tried to hide the event from her family, but she eventually told her older sister. A few days later, she returned to Kathmandu and filed a police complaint against the men.
When she went to the hospital, doctors discovered she was pregnant from the rape, Ansari says. The government provided assistance for her abortion and also compensated her 150,000 rupees ($1,570).
Dol Raj Shahi, the police inspector of the Nepal Police’s Women and Children Service Center in Lalitpur, a district of the Kathmandu Valley, says the police take incidents of violence against women seriously.
“If a single personnel from the police is corrupt, it cannot be generalized that every police official is wrong,” he says.
The woman’s case inspired others to seek justice for violence victims, says Nirmala Sharma, the president of Sancharika Samuha, a forum for female journalists and communicators in Nepal.
“The protesters just want justice and end of lawlessness,” Sharma says.
Throughout Nepal, cases of violence against women are increasing – both because of a rise in violence as well as an uptick in reporting such violence thanks to growing awareness about the issue. Protesters and women’s rights advocates urge the government to improve the justice system for women by creating fast-track courts. Police say they take incidents of violence against women seriously but explain that investigations take time. Protesters vow to continue until the government meets their demands.
Twenty-two percent of Nepalese women between ages 15 and 49 suffer physical violence at least once, according to the 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey. And 9 percent suffered physical violence within the 12 months before the survey.
Various organizations and citizens opposing violence against women spearheaded the movement in Kathmandu to defend the security and self-respect of women, says Kala Rai, a women’s rights activist with the Women’s Rehabilitation Centre, a human rights organization in Lalitpur. She and other advocates have protested in what has become the longest-running movement in the history of Nepalese women’s rights activism.
The movement originally went by the name Occupy Baluwatar, Rai says. The Occupy Baluwatar campaigners collectively decided to suspend the gatherings when Khil Raj Regmi, the prime minister of Nepal’s interim government, promised to meet their demands.
But protests resumed in late April after a three-week hiatus to pressure the government to fulfill unmet promises, Rai says. The demonstrations no longer identify as Occupy Baluwatar, but the participants, slogans and demands remain the same.
Protesters are demanding that the government create fast-track courts and increase punishments for perpetrators of violence. Other demands include more thorough police investigations, a better witness protection program and a new system that would allow women’s rights activists to supervise prosecutions.
The number of reports of violence against women filed with Nepal’s police rose from more than 980 cases in the 2009 to 2010 fiscal year to more than 1,350 in the 2010 to 2011 fiscal year, according to documents from the police headquarters in Kathmandu.
Protesters attribute the increase in incidents of violence against women to patriarchal attitudes, impunity and political protection, Basnet says.
“Incidents of violence against women, including [the] burning alive of innocent women by their own family members, rape and murder, have crossed all limits,” he says.
Although other advocates also acknowledge a spike in direct violence against women, they cite a greater cultural willingness to report the crimes as well.
Educational and media campaigns are helping to promote awareness about violence against women, Ansari says.
“Voices to minimize women violence have been rising every year since a long time,” she says.
Protesters are also spreading awareness about violence against women through online networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter, Basnet says.
But awareness is not the only strategy. The top priority of the protesters is to hasten Nepal’s legal system.
Meera Dhungana, vice president of Forum for Women, Law and Development, a nongovernmental human rights organization, says there are many factors that delay justice here.
“It’s not the lack of law that is the problem in these cases,” she says. “It’s also the patriarchal mentality and political intervention that subvert and delay actions to deliver justice to the victims. The state has unquestionable responsibility to provide expeditious justice to the victims.”
Fast-track courts have become one of the protesters’ primary demands in recent months.
“One of the most crucial issues in this regard is the earliest establishment of the fast-track court,” she says.
Currently, cases of violence against women can take three years to complete, Ansari says.
“This court, when functional, shall make decisions on the issues of violence against women as soon as possible,” she says. “In that case, investigation may be completed within a week, and filing of the case done immediately, which would involve only three months.”
The Supreme Court of Nepal ordered the government to create fast-track courts in February 2010. But political instability and the dissolution of parliament in 2012 have caused the order to lag. Officials say the government will likely review the issue after general elections in November 2013.
Although the government has yet to implement many of the protesters’ demands, they are proud of pressuring the government to hasten court rulings for certain cases and providing justice for some women who suffered violence, Rai says.
“Our movement has forced the government to take quick actions and has also mobilized the people to raise voices with thunder against such violence,” she says.
Demonstrators will continue until the government meets the demands, not just promises to do so, Rai says.
“Our protest will go on till the victims receive justice from the state,” she says.
Interviews were translated from Nepali.
