August 6, 2024
Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli
Singhadurbar, Kathmandu, Nepal
Via email: info@nepal.gov.np
Re: Human Rights Agenda for the New Government
Dear Prime Minister Oli,
Congratulations on becoming prime minister. We are writing to draw your attention to some of the many urgent human rights challenges facing Nepal and urge you to create a legacy of positive change.
Human Rights Watch is an independent non-governmental organization that works in over 90 countries around the world, including the United States, India, and China. We have worked on human rights in Nepal for several decades, on issues ranging from abuses by all sides during the armed conflict, to LGBT rights, child marriage, and the protection of people with disabilities.
In particular, we wanted to draw your attention to the following issues:
Expanding the Child Grant:
In 2009-10, Nepal introduced a Child Grant program to support families in selected districts, with plans to extend it throughout the country. However, despite the policy’s success and popularity where it is available, this human right was not extended in recent budgets. The program currently provides monthly payments of Rs. 532 to families with children under the age of five in 25 out of Nepal’s 77 districts, and all Dalit children under five across the country.
Studies underscore the transformative impact of the Child Grant, including increased birth registration rates, improved access to food and clothes, and lower likelihood of child labor for the recipients and their siblings. Research also shows that the program is a popular policy, enhancing public perceptions of the government.
Around 40 percent of Nepal’s population is under 18, but children receive only around 4 percent of the government’s social protection budget. Nepal’s Child Grant is a proven social protection program for children, but in 2022 it covered just 9.5 percent of all children. The absence of social protection further exposes many children to the harmful effects of economic and climate-related shocks and unpredictable crises like the Covid-19 pandemic, which drove many families into poverty and children into child labor.
The Child Grant has been endorsed by numerous Nepali civil society organizations and international policy experts including UNICEF, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the European Union. In April 2023, 16 Nepali and international civil society organizations wrote to Nepal’s finance minister urging an expansion of the Child Grant. But successive governments have not followed through on commitments to roll it out nationwide.
It was encouraging earlier this year when the then Minister for Women, Children and Senior Citizens, Bhagawati Chaudhary, said the then government intended to extend the program to all districts. She also said the grant amount should be increased, as the current monthly payment is insufficient. But the recent budget did not include this proposal.
Nepal became a pioneer of social protection in South Asia by introducing a universal old age allowance in the 1990s. The Nepali government’s extension of the Child Grant would be an important step toward a more equitable future and another example of forward-looking policy to countries around the world.
We urge your government to:
- Announce concrete steps to extend the Child Grant to all districts, and increase the monthly payment, with the ultimate goal of providing an adequate monthly amount to all Nepali families with children.
Delivering a Credible Transitional Justice Process:
In October 2023, UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted that Nepal is closer than it has ever been to beginning a meaningful transitional justice process, and pledged UN assistance. Ensuring justice and accountability remains the major outstanding commitment of the 2006 peace agreement that ended the decade-long civil war.
Many survivors of sexual violence, who have faced severe social stigma, were unable to register their cases when conflict-era human rights violations were being recorded by the government between 2016-2018. Unlike the victims of some other crimes, survivors of sexual violence and torture and ill treatment never received financial “interim relief,” although many suffer from lasting physical and psychological injuries.
The draft transitional justice bill currently before parliament contains some good provisions. It guarantees the right to reparation, as well as interim relief for some victims who were left out of earlier relief packages. It guarantees the right of the families of victims of enforced disappearance to their relatives’ property. It also mandates the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to study the root causes and impact of the conflict and recommend institutional reforms.
However, it still needs significant amendments if it is to meet standards set by Nepal’s Supreme Court, and clearly established in international law, as well as victims’ justice needs. As your government proceeds with the transitional justice process, it is important that you consider the five pillars of transitional justice identified by the UN Special Rapporteur: truth, justice, reparation, memorialization, and guarantees of non-recurrence.
A process that is not widely acknowledged as lawful and credible would not only fail victims but will not effectively conclude the peace process, because without justice it will not have legitimacy under Nepali or international law.
Under the bill as it currently stands, some gross violations of human rights amounting to crimes under national and international law may be placed outside the scope of prosecution. Cases classified as “serious violations of human rights” could be referred to and prosecuted in a special court. In a separate category, the bill defines “any acts against the domestic law, international human rights law or humanitarian law” as rights violations that cannot be referred to the special court. This risks providing de facto amnesties to alleged perpetrators of some serious international crimes, contrary to international law and the rulings of Nepal’s Supreme Court.
In addition, the definition of both “serious” violations and other violations of human rights stipulates that the offence was committed “in a targeted or planned manner against an unarmed individual or community.” This could exclude many cases not only from any criminal accountability but also other measures under the bill, such as reparations.
The bill does not ensure the independent appointment of judges to the special court, nor the selection of qualified personnel to handle the complexities of serious crime investigations and prosecutions. Finally, the bill does not provide for the financial independence of the transitional justice bodies. According to a recent report by the UN special rapporteur on transitional justice, transparent funding that provides sufficient material and human resources is key to guaranteeing the independence of transitional justice mechanisms.
On May 19, 2023, the Parliamentary Committee on Law, Justice and Human Rights formed an 11-member sub-committee to propose amendments to the bill. Several of the sub-committee’s reported proposals, if they are adopted, would help to address some of the shortcomings in the draft bill. However, the proposed amendments do not fully address several important issues, and we are particularly concerned by reports that some matters under negotiation could undermine the process.
We are aware that political negotiations are well advanced, and urge you to complete an agreement, after discussion with stakeholders, that can be the foundation of a credible and successful process.
We urge your government to:
- Amend the transitional justice bill to ensure that all conduct amounting to gross violations of human rights and grave international crimes, including summary and arbitrary killings, torture, all war crimes and crimes against humanity, are brought to the jurisdiction of the Special Court and are not subject to amnesties.
- Amend the transitional justice bill to ensure that the definition of victims of any rights violation is not limited to “unarmed civilians.”
- Allow adequate time for those victims, including survivors of sexual violence, who have not filed a complaint to register their complaint.
- Create a specialist unit within the TRC to handle cases of sexual violence and other forms of gender-based violence.
- Ensure the bill provides for financial and administrative independence from the government for the commissions, and that the commissions can access additional resources if and when required.
- Invite the UN to establish a small independent structure to be responsible for donor funds in support of transitional justice, to prevent politicization of transitional justice bodies.
- Ensure that the bill provides for the independent appointment of judges to the Special Court, consistent with the standards in Nepal’s constitution.
- Ensure any provisions on sentencing before the Special Court provide that the court can ensure sentences that are commensurate with the gravity of the crime and the degree of responsibility of the convicted person.
- Having adopted the necessary amendments, present the bill for passage by parliament without further unnecessary delay.
Upholding the Rule of Law:
The lack of accountability for conflict-era abuses has helped to entrench a culture of impunity in post-conflict Nepal. This has weakened the rule of law.
Numerous instances of custodial torture and deaths, alleged extra-judicial executions by the police, and deaths resulting from the unnecessary use of lethal force against protestors have gone uninvestigated and unpunished in recent years. Frequently, victims or their families are offered compensation, but no action is taken against alleged perpetrators, and no reforms are made to institutions responsible for repeated abuses.
In July 2023, the then government proposed new legislation that would allow the government to withdraw criminal cases against political leaders and party activists if they were of a “political nature.” In perhaps the most recent instance of impunity, on July 24, 2024, Badshah Kurmi was sworn in as a provincial minister in Lumbini Province. On October 19, 2021, a committee appointed by the Home Ministry had recommended he be investigated for the suspected 2020 murder of Nirmala Kurmi.
In 2020, the National Human Rights Commission published 20 years of data, naming 286 people as suspects in serious crimes that authorities had failed to prosecute. The government has failed to initiate prosecution in any of these cases.
We urge your government to:
- Actively seek to investigate and, where supported by evidence, prosecute police officers, as well as other officials, implicated in abuses.
- Not to adopt legislation that would entrench impunity for politically connected people accused of crimes.
- Abolish the statute of limitations in all rape cases. Although it was extended in 2022 from one year to either two or three years depending on the age of the victim, the existence of a state of limitations remains a barrier to justice.
Protecting the Rights of Migrant Workers:
Remittances from migrant workers are essential to the Nepali economy and allow millions of workers to support their families. Despite their contributions, many Nepali workers abroad suffer injury or death due to unsafe working conditions, while countless others are vulnerable to exploitation. The high cost of migration drives many into debt. We remain particularly concerned about Nepalis trafficked to serve in the Russian army.
We urge your government to:
- Prioritize revising existing or signing new bilateral labor agreements that include strong provisions on responsible recruitment, wage protection, access to healthcare, occupational health and safety, and access to justice, with an emphasis on better monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.
- Ensure that Nepali embassies in migrant destination countries are well-resourced to cater to the migrant workforce and enhance accountability among embassy staff to support migrant workers who experience abuse abroad.
- Strengthen diplomatic efforts to ensure the immediate release of Bipin Joshi, a Learn and Earn student in Kibbutz Alumim in Israel, who has been held hostage in Gaza since October 7.
- Take immediate steps to ensure the safe return of Nepalis fighting for the Russian Army in Ukraine, ensure compensation for the families of the deceased, and investigate and prosecute the traffickers involved in their deployment.
- Unilaterally through pre-departure orientation or awareness programs, bilaterally in coordination with the governments of migrant destination countries, and regionally through platforms like the Colombo Process and Abu Dhabi Dialogue, raise issues around migrant worker health.
- Lift the deployment ban on domestic workers’ emigration which has spurred irregular travel of aspirants to work in this sector which puts them further at risk. Instead, strengthen protection measures for workers in this sector in coordination with the destination country governments.
Establishing Clear Policies for Gender and Sexual Minorities:
Nepal has developed ground-breaking policies to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people since 2007, for which the government has received praise from many quarters. On June 28, 2023, the Supreme Court ordered the government to register same-sex marriages under an interim order. In another key ruling, the Supreme Court has ruled in July that a person should be allowed to change their gender from the one assigned at birth on the basis of self-identification, including changing to being listed as male or female—not just third gender.
However, implementation gaps persist. Strong legislation is needed to protect transgender people. Despite several Supreme Court orders to allow transgender people in Nepal to change their legal name and gender on the basis of self-identification, officials are increasingly asking for “medical proof” that a person has undergone surgery. This medical verification process is neither mentioned in Nepal’s laws nor is it in line with international best practices.
We urge your government to:
- Prepare legislation recognizing same sex marriage.
- Ensure that in the proposed new citizenship act, there is no mention of medical requirements for transgender Nepalis to change their legal name and gender on their nagarikta.
- The Ministry of Home Affairs should work with civil society groups to create a transparent and quick procedure for processing paperwork related to legal gender change.
Respecting the Full Citizenship Rights of all Nepalis:
Due to flawed citizenship laws, an estimated 6.7 million people are forced to live without citizenship and are at risk of statelessness. In particular, Nepal’s 2006 Citizenship Act, as well as the 2015 constitution, contain provisions that discriminate against women by making it harder for them to pass Nepali citizenship to their children than for men. A citizenship bill, which was passed by parliament last year, provides citizenship to some people who did not have it, though it retains discriminatory provisions and leaves many others without citizenship.
- Your government should bring legislation to ensure that all Nepalis enjoy equal and full citizenship rights regardless of gender, caste, or ethnicity.
We look forward to working with your government on these issues.
Yours sincerely,
Elaine Pearson
Asia Director
Human Rights Watch
