21 June 2012. In a context where thousands of sexual and gender based violence victims are deprived of justice, owing to flaws and lacunae prevalent in the existing legal systems, Advocacy Forum (AF) and REDRESS jointly organized a two-day strategic workshop on June 18 and 19 so as to seek avenues of justice, both in domestic and international mechanisms. The workshop was facilitated by Vandana Nainar, an independent consultant and Sarah Fulton of REDRESS.
The workshop titled “Litigating Gender Based Violence in Nepal” comprised representatives from the Office of the Attorney General, National Human Rights Commission, National Women Commission and AF lawyers. It covered wider discussions on gaps in the existing justice system, including the discriminatory 35-day statutory limitation, exclusive dependency on medical evidences to prove the incident of rape and many other numerous legal and social blocks and barriers that a rape victim has to confront while seeking justice. The program also covered long debates and discussions on rape exclusively and also rape as a form of severe torture. The first half of the program conducted by Ms. Nainar focused on rape as a form of torture while the second half by Ms. Fulton gave comprehensive overview to the participants about the international mechanisms that rape victims and rape victims as torture victims may invoke where every single means of domestic remedy exhaust while litigating the case.
