Unveiling Justice Rape Survivors Speak Out

Nepal, a country emerging from armed conflict and with a strong base of patriarchy and feudalism at its roots, has institutionalized the norm of violence as portrayed in social values, political criminalisation and impunity. The practice of routinely subjecting women to various forms of violence from the womb to the grave is pervasive. Socially, the sanctity of marriage remains a key structure through which the liberty of women is hampered. Thus, the inter-linkages of women’s chastity with their sexuality wherein any breaches are considered to be contaminating norms have contributed to situate rape as the crime shrouded in secrecy, giving rise to a pervasive and prevalent culture of silence among the survivors. Rape is a heinous human rights violation that infringes upon the sexual autonomy and integrity of an individual. Nepal committed herself to uphold the international human rights norms as stipulated in the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); Convention on the Rights of the Child; International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR); as a State party to international law. In addition, with the UNSCR 1325 and 1820 which are clear on promoting women’s participation and working towards combating sexual violence, it is mandatory for the Government of Nepal to put in place mechanisms to actualize its commitment to women’s rights. It is within this mandate that WOREC-Nepal and Isis-WICCE set out to examine the extent to which survivors of rape and sexual violence access justice and the efficacy of response mechanisms, in an effort to inform and draw the attention of decision and policy makers, activists, development workers, legal practitioners, and academic practitioners, to this critical development concern. Based on 55 in-depth interviews with survivors, 114 key informant interviews, 33 focus group discussions as primary sources; and media review (MR) of 201 cases and analysis of 723 documented cases WOREC xvii by organizations (OR) as secondary sources, the research team covered the 10 districts of Morang, Dhanusha, Kailali, Udayapur, Kavrepalanchowk, Kathmandu, Baglung, Dailekh, Dolakha and Darchula. Major findings i) Prevalence and magnitude of rape The findings show that the reporting and documentation of rape cases is still very marginal. An average of 443 cases in a year1reflects a high prevalence of rape if systems are conducive for survivors to report. The analysis further indicates that rape is a deeply entrenched national problem that transcends class, caste, ethnicity, age, economic, educational, geographical and religious status. From the regional perspective, Terai/Madhes was rated at (46.5% -MR and 45.1% -OR); and Jhapa (43-OR) district as having the highest rate of rape. According to the media review, the most affected group was in Hill Janjati (39.3%); and as per organizations’ documentation review, Brahmin/Chhetri and Hill Dalit (24.5% for each) followed by Hill Janjati (23%). The groups of minors (62.8%-OR, 63.6%-MR and 65.9%-police), students (67.9% -MR and 62.5%-OR) and unmarried women (79.4%-MR and 88.3%- OR) were the most vulnerable and affected. Though it is a fact that rape within marriage exists, it remains a taboo subject which is kept well hidden and institutionalized within the family structure. It was therefore difficult to identify and document marital rape related cases.

This book documents the journey of the survivors of sexual violence as they navigate the gruelling criminal justice and health care systems and the stigma and hostility in their communities in the aftermath of the incident. Through personal narratives of survivors and their family members, the book examines critical gaps in the existing networks of criminal procedure, health, and rehabilitation for survivors of sexual violence and rape. Using qualitative research, it distills the narratives gathered through interviews with survivors and their family members to understand their experiences and offers. The book contributes to the corpus of literature on different forms of violence against women in India with an emphasis on understanding the effectiveness of institutions, both formal and informal, in responding to sexual violence, and offering suggestions for changes in the health and support systems available to them. It documents post-incident interactions of survivors with family, community, the police, courts, lawyers, and hospitals and highlights the impact of rape on physical and mental health, work, relationships, education and housing for survivors and their families. This book will be of interest to those engaged in providing support to survivors of sexual violence as well as students and researchers of social work and social policy, health and social care, law, gender studies, human rights and civil liberties, gender and sexuality, social welfare, and mental health.

The Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia research project (coordinated by Zubaan and supported by the International Development Research Centre) brings together, for the first time in the region, a vast body of research on this important – yet silenced – subject. Six country volumes (one each on Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and two on India, as well as two standalone volumes) comprising over fifty research papers and two book-length studies, detail the histories of sexual violence and look at the systemic, institutional, societal, individual and community structures that work together to perpetuate impunity for perpetrators. The essays in this volume focus on Nepal, which though not directly colonized, has not remained immune from the influence of colonialism in its neighbourhood. In addition to home-grown feudal patriarchal structures, the writers in this volume clearly demonstrate that it is the larger colonial and post-colonial context of the subcontinent that has enabled the structuring of inequalities and power relations in ways that today allow for widespread sexual violence and impunity in the country – through legal systems, medical regimes and social institutions. The period after the 1990 democratic movement, the subsequent political transformation in the aftermath of the Maoist insurgency and the writing of the new constitution, has seen an increase in public discussion about sexual violence. The State has brought in a slew of legislation and action plans to address this problem. And yet, impunity for perpetrators remains intact and justice elusive. What are the structures that enable such impunity? What can be done to radically transform these? How must States understand the search for justice for victims and survivors of sexual violence? This volume addresses these and related issues. Published by Zubaan.

A key book for conflict and peace studies, reveals the gendered nature of peacebuilding, its consequences, and the importance of women playing a part in peace processes in Africa.Even in the best of circumstances, women are all too often excluded from formal peacemaking and peacebuilding processes and relegated to the sidelines as observers or limited to informal peacebuilding strategies. Yet there is enormous potential in these strategies as women often strive to build bridges across political, ethnic, religious, clan and other differences through alliances arising from common concerns around violence, land, access to resources, and protection of their families and communities, and address sources of conflict at both national and local levels. Drawing on cutting-edge research by scholars and women''s rights activists in South Sudan, Sudan, Algeria, northern Nigeria, and Somalia, this book focuses on the consequences of the continuing exclusions of women from peace talks and from post-conflict governance structures. The case studies reveal how peacebuilding is gendered and why this matters in developing meaningful and sustainable approaches to peacebuilding. Examining how women activists have made a difference through informal peacebuilding activities, the contributors explore women''s efforts to reshapethe post-conflict context by struggling for legislative and constitutional reforms and by advocating for political representation and political inclusion more generally within peacebuilding processes. They also look at how women have pushed back against the conservative Islamist forces that today dominate much armed conflict in Africa. Suggesting that women''s formal participation in peace negotiations is vital in bringing about an end to conflict and preventing its resumption, as well as the one of the most effective strategies, this book will be essential reading for scholars and NGOs involved in development, conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The book is the product of a research project on Women and Peacebuilding in Africa, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.tures. The case studies reveal how peacebuilding is gendered and why this matters in developing meaningful and sustainable approaches to peacebuilding. Examining how women activists have made a difference through informal peacebuilding activities, the contributors explore women''s efforts to reshapethe post-conflict context by struggling for legislative and constitutional reforms and by advocating for political representation and political inclusion more generally within peacebuilding processes. They also look at how women have pushed back against the conservative Islamist forces that today dominate much armed conflict in Africa. Suggesting that women''s formal participation in peace negotiations is vital in bringing about an end to conflict and preventing its resumption, as well as the one of the most effective strategies, this book will be essential reading for scholars and NGOs involved in development, conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The book is the product of a research project on Women and Peacebuilding in Africa, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.lding in Africa, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.tures. The case studies reveal how peacebuilding is gendered and why this matters in developing meaningful and sustainable approaches to peacebuilding. Examining how women activists have made a difference through informal peacebuilding activities, the contributors explore women''s efforts to reshapethe post-conflict context by struggling for legislative and constitutional reforms and by advocating for political representation and political inclusion more generally within peacebuilding processes. They also look at how women have pushed back against the conservative Islamist forces that today dominate much armed conflict in Africa. Suggesting that women''s formal participation in peace negotiations is vital in bringing about an end to conflict and preventing its resumption, as well as the one of the most effective strategies, this book will be essential reading for scholars and NGOs involved in development, conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The book is the product of a research project on Women and Peacebuilding in Africa, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.tures. The case studies reveal how peacebuilding is gendered and why this matters in developing meaningful and sustainable approaches to peacebuilding. Examining how women activists have made a difference through informal peacebuilding activities, the contributors explore women''s efforts to reshapethe post-conflict context by struggling for legislative and constitutional reforms and by advocating for political representation and political inclusion more generally within peacebuilding processes. They also look at how women have pushed back against the conservative Islamist forces that today dominate much armed conflict in Africa. Suggesting that women''s formal participation in peace negotiations is vital in bringing about an end to conflict and preventing its resumption, as well as the one of the most effective strategies, this book will be essential reading for scholars and NGOs involved in development, conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The book is the product of a research project on Women and Peacebuilding in Africa, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.lding in Africa, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.lding in Africa, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.tures. The case studies reveal how peacebuilding is gendered and why this matters in developing meaningful and sustainable approaches to peacebuilding. Examining how women activists have made a difference through informal peacebuilding activities, the contributors explore women''s efforts to reshapethe post-conflict context by struggling for legislative and constitutional reforms and by advocating for political representation and political inclusion more generally within peacebuilding processes. They also look at how women have pushed back against the conservative Islamist forces that today dominate much armed conflict in Africa. Suggesting that women''s formal participation in peace negotiations is vital in bringing about an end to conflict and preventing its resumption, as well as the one of the most effective strategies, this book will be essential reading for scholars and NGOs involved in development, conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The book is the product of a research project on Women and Peacebuilding in Africa, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.lding in Africa, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.olution and peacebuilding. The book is the product of a research project on Women and Peacebuilding in Africa, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.lding in Africa, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.

This book brings rarely voiced lives and experiences of women in Nepal to light and combines rich ethnography with discourse analysis. Multifaceted and critical, the volume situates its narrative in the profoundly transformative period after the turn of the century when ‘New Nepal’ was rising on the horizon and sheds light on Nepali women’s experiences in multiple sites, crossing class and ethnic lines. It is based on extensive fieldwork among women domestic workers, construction workers, street vendors, women from the indigenous community of Hyolmo, and others. Mainly through an ethnographic approach, the author explores Nepali women’s experiences on the ground, mostly situated in classed, ethnic, or other socio-cultural peripheries in Nepali social landscape. Through the unusually intimate narrative on these women from the global south, who are still prone to be cast into a deeply colonial, simplistic image of ‘victimized women’, readers will get a nuanced perspective of the multidimensional diversity among these women as well as a sense of kinship with oneself. The book will be invaluable for researchers and students of gender studies, global south studies, development studies, cultural anthropology/ethnography, Nepal studies, and feminist geography. It will be of interest to anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, policymakers, and those with an interest in global gender issues.

By extending the cast list of roles implicated in rape’s hidden sphere of harm, this book attentively listens to experiential voices of complainant/witnesses, suspect/accused, police, lawyers, judges and jurors, therapists, advocates, partners, parents, family and friends during the criminal justice journey. Highlighting good and bad practices, it proposes a paradigm shift for inculcating policy reform, arguing the case for implementation science as a framework for embedding change. The book will be of interest to those involved in the policy, practice and delivery of criminal justice, the support and voluntary sector as well as giving valuable insight to students of forensic and investigative psychology, criminology, law, social policy, gender studies the new policing apprenticeship degree programmes.