KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 6
Sexual violence against women has risen from 2387 in 20222/23 fiscal to 2507 in 2023/2024 fiscal. This figure was 2380 in 2021/22 fiscal according to Nepal Police data.
Speaking at an interaction organised by Forum for Women, Law and Development here today, Police Inspector Kushal Kumar Bartaula from Police Headquarters' Women, Children and Senior Citizen Directorate said that more efforts need to be made to make public aware so that they can report incidents of sexual violence and rape in time.
He said digital evidence should be treated as solid evidence during the course of investigation but detectives also need to look for alternative evidence to make sexual violence cases watertight.
Advocate Sagar Pathak said that the statute of limitation had increased from 35 days to one year and then two years. He said that statute of limitation in rape case was more than three years in the case of minor girls. Pathak said that the percentage of the perpetrator acquainted with the victims had risen from 88 per cent in last year to 92 per cent this year.
District Government Attorney of Lalitpur District Attorney Office Mamta Shrestha said that investigators sometimes were unable to gather adequate evidence in sexual violence case due to lack of human resources. She said that when detectives send semen of accused for forensic test, National Forensic Science Laboratory often tell them that they do not have right equipment to check semen.
Some participants said that statute of limitation should not be an impediment to ensure justice for victims of sexual violence as it was difficult for the victims to report the crime in the prescribed time limit.
