For some, progress made in women’s legal rights in Nepal has been a Cinderella-like fairy tale; for many, women are frustratingly made to look like turtles in a race against rabbits of patriarchy.
This is the impression I got so far in more than 300 episodes of Mahila Adhikar (Women’s Rights), a 25 minutes-long program specially designed to inform and make people aware of the legal aspects of women’s rights in Nepal. I have been producing and presenting a public debate on the legal aspects of women’s rights on Nepal Television since 2016 (about100 episodes are accessible on YouTube). As a television journalist, I have been doing an interview-based program “Mahila Adhikar”, specially designed for legal issues and women’s rights every week. The program has been a platform to both rights holders and duty bearers to raise, discuss, assess, appreciate, flag, criticize, warn, and suggest practical ways forward about women's legal issues and rights realistically.
The Issues (Yet to be) Covered
In the last eight years, I have engaged activists, lawmakers, bureaucrats, political leaders, legislators, lawyers, security personnel, academics, Dalit experts, indigenous experts, women experts, people with disability, and LGBTQIA+ and survivors to talk about issues focused on women’s legal rights in both length and breadth. Most of them are women and a few are men, LGBTQIA+, and persons with disabilities. The issues discussed include violence against women and children, gender-based violence, access to justice, gender equality and equity, discrimination, the status of laws and their implementation to maintain gender equality and equity, the Victim Protection Act, and the way laws help to protect women’s rights and social justice.
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The specific issues and rights discussed are long. On gender-based violence, discussions focused on mental violence, domestic violence, economic violence, sexual harassment, abuse at workplace, sexual violence, violence against sex workers, violence in the name of custom, tradition, religion, and culture, sexual harassment in public transportations, and penalty provisions for conciliation in case of sexual abuse and violence. Similarly, specific issues covered on economic rights included property rights (inherent, couples), equal rights of spouses in property, fraction (ansha), maana chamaal (food security), women's rights on land, employment, gender-friendly workplace, and implementation of transitional justice act. In the case of marriage, family, and kinship, the issues discussed included child marriage, polygamy, dowry, divorce, widow, and reproductive rights, and ghatana darta, panjikaran (registration of birth, marriage, and death ie civil registration). Other women’s issues covered were education, health, social security, senior citizens, the informal sector, foreign employment, disabilities, citizenship, labour, women entrepreneurs in business, politics, and reservation of seats in the government sector.
During my informal talks with resource persons and other experts belonging to diverse groups, I got the impression that the list of issues yet to be discussed is long. There are many issues and rights of women with intersectionality, such as women belonging to indigenous peoples, Dalits, Madhesi, Muslims, women with different sexual orientations (LBTIQI+), and linguistic, religious, cultural, regional, migrant, and refugee groups.
Lack of Implementation and Recognition
Most of the resource persons opined that the Constitution of Nepal and the recent scenario are not bad, but its implementation is not enough. Some of them flagged that Nepali women have built their capacity so much that they can compete with their male counterparts in every sector, not only in the country but also in global forums as well. Despite some success stories of Nepali women, most of them are still struggling, grappling with a lot of issues and problems in their everyday life. Among these issues, legal issues are one of the most important issues.
Though there are some positive developments in favour of women due to constitutional provisions and new legislations on women’s rights, there is still a long way to go toward gender equality and equity among women in general, and intersectional diverse groups and communities in particular. The lack of implementation of constitutional and legal provisions and international laws ratified or adopted by Nepal, including CEDAW and CEDAW GR No. 39, and the recommendations made by the UN Treaty and Political Bodies is a serious concern for all.
Professor Dr Shashi Adhikary Raut, a senior lawyer, citing one such examples, said that the constitution and recently amended Nepal Citizenship (First Amendment) Ordinance, 2078, give legal rights to children to get citizenship based on their mother’s citizenship, but they still have a problem getting citizenship through the mother’s name as there are lots of unnecessary and unfavourable procedure that makes easy and effective implementation of the law a daunting task by creating hardships for both women and their children.
In a similar vein, Aash Rai, lawyer and vice chairperson of the Central Committee of the Nepal BarAssociation said that after the Second People’s Movement, and the elected Second Constituent Assembly promulgated the constitution and the laws made it mandatory to have 33 percent of women’s participation in every sector, including political sector, but it has not been fully and effectively implemented because of patriarchy that plays the vital role behind such a poor and unfavourable implementation of law.
Likewise, Rabi Narayan Khanal, a senior lawyer, said that the Constitution of Nepal 2015 has adopted the principle of inclusion, but women’s representation in key decision-making positions is more ornamental than substantive.
Surendra Yadav, a senior advocate, pointed out that there is no documented presence and easy accessibility of different strata within women cluster, such as the Dalit, Madhesi, Muslim, and the ruling Khas Arya communities, the constitution and laws should be made by opening the cluster with the emphasis to bring the people within the reach of the women of the targeted class community as stipulated in the constitution.
To conclude, the main problem in having adequate meaningful constitutional and legal provisions is that these are based primarily on Hindu jurisprudence, mixed up with common law and civil law. In the coming days, we need to focus on clarity and/or recognition of and debate on feminist jurisprudence, Dalit feminist jurisprudence, Madhesi feminist jurisprudence, Islamic feminist jurisprudence, and indigenous feminist jurisprudence to do justice to women in general and diverse group of women in particular.
