Males, after it comes to surface that they have ill treated, harassed or exploited their live-in partners, straightaway challenge the legal advisors, “So what? Take action if you can!” [break]
Deepa Acharya, senior legal counselor at Women Commission states that the legal counselors in the office have to deal with such arrogant males on a regular basis.
She dealt with similar cases even while she was working at Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD) as a legal advisor three years ago. “There is no legal provision to deal with the issues related to “live-in relationships”, and the cost of that is mainly borne by the female partners.”
According to Acharya, the nature of the relationship is such that the females fall prey to the situation, especially in our social context.
“Though we met both the partners in person often, it is exclusively the females who have literally wept and begged for justice in our office room,” she said.
She added that generally male decides to break free of the relationship once issues starts mounting and in most cases, woman falls weak due to her attachment with the partner, or due to pregnancy or identity problem of the new born child from such a partner.
“The male, in a majority of cases, seem to deliberately use the female as he is already aware of the lack of legal provision dealing with the issue,” said Acharya.
She further added, “I have come across women who have gone for abortion more than twice, thrice or even more times, just when the male stops cooperating, female begins to face multiple problems.”
According to her, the trend is common not only among the new generation, who finds it “cool”, but also among well educated professionals, including doctors, police personnel, army men, journalists, lawyers, teachers and so on.
Saraj Raj Thapa, legal expert at the commission for five years now, also admitted that in a majority of cases, males are exploiters and women remain exploited.
“There is no exact record of the complaints related to such cases. However, it can be said that the cases are just growing, and always, it is the woman who suffers,” he said. According to him, this year alone, around 20 women have sought help from the Women Commission.
Thapa further asserted that wider study of the subject is needed and perhaps the commission would go for it soon. “In fact, as we began to receive “different” cases of violence against women; we felt the need to study different aspects of “live in relationships” and that was done two years ago,” he said.
Former Attorney General Chet Nath Ghimire and Legal expert Kopila Rijal had gathered 26 live-in relationship cases from several NGOs and the commission and studied them in detail.
The study recommended that the case of domestic violence against women ought to be treated as per the existing law, while, for other complex issues, such as that of the birth and identification of the child, there is no clear solution.
According to former secretary at the commission Ritu Raj Bhandari, the issue of live-in-relationship is not that very easy to tackle legally. “Under marital status, husband and wife have certain rights and responsibilities, it is difficult to draw lines from the definition of marriage,” he viewed.
“On the other hand, lack of proper definition of the term, and legal provisions regarding live-in relationship, individuals continue to suffer,” he summed up.
It is apparent that the trend is fast growing in the country and is making room not only for love and romance, but in long term, multiple problems for the concerned individuals.
The unwanted consequences of a live-in-relationship, that is affecting the lives of hundreds out there, indeed call for a serious debate on the issue.
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