View Points

Jaya Ghimire
Member of Constituent Assembly / Secretary, All Nepal Women’s Association
Representation of women in every sector of the state should be ensured in the new constitution. Rights of women including health and education should be incorporated as fundamental rights. Similarly, equal rights of son and daughter be ensured in parental property and there should be equal access, ownership and participation of men and women in the state resources.

Separate law should be formed to end domestic violence against women. We hope that the parliament will immediately endorse the Domestic Violence Act. Legal provision should be made for ending the dowry system of Tarai and ensuring strict punishment to the perpetrators involved in sexual violence.
If a mother becomes healthy, the whole country will become healthy so the new constitution should prioritize the issue of maternal health rights. Proportional representation of women should be ensured in Legislature, Executive and Judiciary, three major organs of the state. Legal provision should be made for the protection of the women of deprived community and poor background. The constitution should be made for making equal participation of men and women.

 

Dhan Kumari Sunar
Member, National Women’s Commission
Various forms of discrimination against women continue till date as the decision of the government to ensure 33 percent representation of women in every aspect has not been materialized so far. Constitutional provision for proportional representation of women should be ensured to secure women’s rights. Women’s rights should be guaranteed as fundamental rights in the new constitution. The rule for providing citizenship is discriminatory. There is a provision that if a Nepal man marries a foreigner she will get the citizenship certificate but if a woman marries a foreigner, he will not get the citizenship, so such discriminatory provision should be amended and equal rights be ensured. Women lawmaker should raise this issue in the Constituent Assembly.

Legal provision should be made to ensure proportional representation of women in every organs of the state. As discussions are on about Federal Democratic Republican Set Up, the proportional representation of women in various structures should be ensured. Legal provision should be made to ensure proportional representation of women in constitutional commission. Women are facing discrimination. The new constitution should include legal provision to ensure special rights of women.

 

Nirmala Sharma
General Secretary, Sancharika Samuha
Women have been deprived from political, social and community-level decision making process since long time. Proportional representation of women should be ensured in every sector. The fundamental base of the Federal Democratic Republic is the political parties and democracy could be sustainable only if the political parties are able to democratize themselves and make the party structure inclusive and transparent. Proportional Representation of women should be ensured from decision making level to village committees. Legal provision should be made not to recognize political party as national party if it failed to ensure proportional representation of women.

Equality is important not only between men and women but also among the women. The new constitution should make special provision for women, who were lagging behind due to race, religion, physical disabilities, geographical areas and occupation among others to mainstream them.

Women should have equal access to all means of communication and media. Media have to disseminate information to promote gender equality and mechanism should be developed to monitor women’s representation in media sector. Writings and television programmes that will re-victimize the women should be discouraged. Legal provision should be made to discourage news, features and television programmes that humiliates women or violates women’s rights.

The Constituent Assembly should draft a women friendly new constitution after changing the feudal structure of the state. Women’s participation in every structure of the state should be increased to 50 percent from existing 33 percent. The atrocities committed against women in the name of religion and culture should be stopped and women should be assured that they also have some stake in the state, which is the main challenge of the Constituent Assembly.

 

Laxmi Pokhrel
Officer, Nepal Bar Association Human Rights Project
The new constitution should be free from all sorts of discrimination. The gender-based biasness should be resolved. For example of a Nepali boy marries with a foreigner she will get the citizenship but if a Nepali girl marries with a foreigner he will not receive the citizenship, such provisions should be suspended. As the Interim Constitution only guarantees reproductive health as the fundamental rights, protection of motherhood shall be ensured in the new constitution. Provisions like free education to girls upto bachelors’ level and no discrimination on the marital status should be incorporated in the new constitution.

There should be constitutional guarantee to ensure proportional representation of women in every organ of the state. Male and female should have equal access, and control over the state resources. The state should adopt the policy of giving preferential treatment to the women for job and promotion of industries.

The government should adopt special policy to make the access of single, physically challenged, dalit, indigenous, janajati and Madheshi women in education and employment sectors. All sorts of violence against women at the workplace, public places and within the home should be made a punishable offense and provision shall be made to ensure appropriate compensation to the victims.