KATHMANDU, JUNE 23
Members of sexual and gender minority and rights activists have said that the newly enacted citizenship law would address some of their concerns, particularly related to their identity, but said they still had a long battle to fight to get equal rights and to live with dignity.
Speaking at an interaction organised by Forum for Women, Law and Development here today on the rights of gender and sexual minorities, member of sexual and gender minority community Ishan Regmi said the current rules stipulate that a newborn baby should be registered with the local registrar within 35 days from the date of birth and if the details of birth registration certificate have to be amended, a petition should be filed within one year.
Regmi said these provisions were proving to be great hurdle for inter-sex babies who discover much later that they are not the gender that their parents assigned them at their birth. Regmi said the current provisions did not allow major changes in the birth registration, particularly with regard to gender identity. He said couples who were not married but were in a live-in relationship could not get their children's birth registered.
Another member Bhumika Shrestha said members of gender and sexual community were not allowed to change their gender identity as per their preference. They were asked to prove by furnishing the sex change operation certificate. The government agencies require them to be checked by doctors through an invasive process that violate their right to privacy. She said she changed her citizenship twice to get proper identity, but all the members of the gender and sexual minority were not lucky and some had to wait for years to get clearance from the home ministry, and lastly from the Council of Ministers.
Mitini Nepal founder Laxmi Ghalan said she had been living with her partner for more than 15 years. She had tried to get a certificate to prove her relationship with her partner, but the concerned local level did not issue her the certificate. She has now filed a writ petition at the Supreme Court.
Advocate Roshana Pradhan and Binu Lama said that same-sex spousal relationship was not yet recognised in Nepal.
Advocate Sushma Gautam said despite the Supreme Court paving the way for implementation of the newly enacted citizenship law, members of sexual and gender minorities need to brace for a long legal battle to get equal rights and the right to live with dignity. She said the existing laws did not allow other than biological parents to confer citizenship to adopted children and that was a hurdle for members of gender and sexual minorities who wanted to adopt children or people who wanted to have babies through surrogacy.
Some participants said members of gender and sexual minority should be given option in all legal documents to identity gender of their choice or not to identity any gender at all.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 24, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
