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Maina Sunuwar

Maina Sunuwar
Around 6 am on February 17, 2004, a group of RNA soldiers arrested Ms Maina Sunuwar, a 15-year-old schoolgirl of Kharelthok VDC-6, Kavre district. She disappeared since her arrest. Her family members, with support from villagers and school where Maina was a student, visited detention centers and Army barracks to find her, but the authorities simply denied having arrested and detained her.
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Close Encounters

Stories from the frontline of human rights work in Nepal

Close Encounters
During Nepal’s armed conflict and its aftermath, human rights violations not only scarred and destroyed the victims but had a devastating effect on the lives of human rights defenders.
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What We Do?

Advocacy Forum (AF) takes a proactive, empirical and sustainable approach to dealing with human rights violations. We devise innovative strategies and take to interdisciplinary approaches to handle our activities, which are zeroed in on combating the vicious cycle of impunity afflicting the people. AF's adopts the following Strategic Approaches:

Documentation and Monitoring of Human Rights

Visits to detention center, fact-finding trips, documenting cases of human rights violations; monitoring the functioning police and administrative bodies, and critical review of laws and policies that contradict with international laws.

Emblematic cases

Taking up emblematic cases help to bring concerted, coordinated and sustained pressures in these cases both nationally and internationally.

Focused Policy Advocacy

Research-based advocacy aiming at reform of policies and laws to comply with international standards and practices; enhancing access to justice for the poor and marginalized, including transitional justice for conflict victims; fighting the culture of impunity; reform of the criminal justice system; and promotion of a fair juvenile justice system in line with international standards.  

Capacity Building of Local Organizations

Capacity building measures (skills training, workshops, exchanges and so on) to enhance the organizational and leadership capacity of the relevant stakeholders

Legal Aid

Legal aid involves legal advice and counseling, legal representation, bringing cases on behalf of victims of human rights violations both at national level and internationally


So extensive is the breadth of our activities that not a single incident of import regarding the issue of human rights escapes unattended by us. Currently, we have five well-resourced thematic departments inherently guided by our mission, vision and objectives. These departments, however, aren't separate entities in themselves but work in close coordination and complement each other in total symbiosis:
  1. Criminal Justice Department
  2. Transitional Justice Department
  3. Prevention of Torture Department
  4. HR Documentation and Monitoring Department
  5. Child Rights Monitoring and Juvenile Justice Department
Besides, the Research, Advocacy and lobbying forms an integral part of AF's work.

Criminal Justice Department

The department more generally works to uphold proactive and accessible legal aid system in Nepal. Besides providing free legal aid and counseling to indigent detainees, it promotes fair trial standards and works for reform and improvement in Nepalese criminal justice system.
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Transitional Justice Department

The department oversees the implementation of various programs on transitional justice in Nepal. The aim of the department is to contribute towards Nepal’s attempt to post-conflict recovery and retroactive justice by increasing access to justice for victims.
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Prevention of Torture Department

The department specifically aims at challenging impunity and promoting accountability in torture and ill-treatment in Nepal in general and prevention of torture common in government detention facilities in particular.
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Documentation and Monitoring Department

The department systematically documents and processes the cases of human rights violations committed by the state and non-state actors with an aim to combat impunity through raising cases of human rights violations to national and international authorities concerned including UN Mechanisms and courts.
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Child Rights Monitoring and Juvenile Justice

The department is focused on monitoring Child Rights Violations (CRVs) including the effect of conflict on children and promoting the establishment of juvenile justice system along with making it more functional.
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Research, Advocacy and lobbying

Besides being a hub of research vis-à-vis various areas relating to human rights in Nepal, AF has also played a major role in mobilizing the national and international opinion to respond to the human rights situation in Nepal.
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