KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 2

Rights activists said that all three tiers of the government should work in tandem to change laws, policies and social ills that give rise to cases of gender-based violence.

Presenting a paper on the functions of the 'The role of Kathmandu Metropolitan City in tackling gender-based violence' at a programme organised jointly by Forum for Women, Law, Justice and Development and Kathmandu metropolis, Advocate Sabin Shrestha, who is also the executive director of FWLD, said that out of 753 local governments, only 114 local governments had set up the anti-gender-based violence fund.

Many victims of gender-based violence hesitate to go to judicial committees and when they go there, they do not get the kind of relief and justice they expect from these structures, Shrestha argued.

He said that there was need for all the local levels to have adequate anti-gender-based violence fund so that such amount can be used for sheltering the victims and pro-viding interim relief to them.

If a woman battered by her husband has to file a complaint at a local judicial committee and if she has to return to the same husband's house after filing the case, chances are high that many victims would not go to file complaints at such mechanisms because she would fear reprisal from her abusive hus-band, Shrestha argued. He said that Kathmandu metropolis had Rs one million in the anti-gender-based violence fund, but that has not been used yet. 'I want local governments to spend all the fund available in the anti- gender-based violence fund,' he said and added that Kathmandu metropolis had formed a relief committee for the gender-based violence victims but the committee was yet to do majoractivities for the targeted group.

Senior Advocate Meera Dhungana said that discriminatory laws, including citizenship and partition of property laws, were at the root of gender-based violence. 'The government has outlawed child marriage and polygamy yet these marriages happen in society but the policymakers do not have actualdata of such marriages. How can the government solve these problems without proper data?' she wondered.

She said the government need to make a working plan to collect actual data of child marriage and bigamy before launching remedial measures. She said the constitution had ensured equal rights to women in all spheres, including lineage, yet they were discriminated on mat-ters of passing nationality to their children.

'Women, who are the real parents of their children, cannot pass nationality to their children and they cannot register the birth of their children. Discriminatory laws are to be blamed for all these issues,' she argued. Lawyers, civil society members and representatives of local governments, including members of local judicial committees took part in the interaction.

Dipak Adhikari, director at Social Development Department of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, said that Kathmandu Metropolitan City had allocated budget for tackling gender-based violence and the local level had been carrying out multiple programmes to educate the general public and vulnerable groups. He said awareness should be created to spread the message of equality of all citizens.

We all are equal. Men and women are equal. We should take a pledge that we will not commit violence against women, children or anybody and we will not tolerate if anybody commits gender-based violence, he added.

Many victims of gender-based violence hesitate to go to judicial committees

A version of this article appears in the print on December 3, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.