Sexual violence among girls in 10 districts of Nepal

Research Report:

Over the past four decades, violence against women and girls has been recognised as a serious violation of human rights and as an important concern for social policy making. This study report explains the situation of sexual violence among girls in Nepal, especially in the 10 districts: Banke, Jumla, Makawanpur, Rautahat, Kapilbastu, Kailali, Achham, Dhankuta, Myagdi and Sunsari. Nepal is a country with the population of 28 million and child population shares 42 percent (CBS 2011). This study report provides an analysis of the estimation of scale of sexual violence, causes and effect on the victims and family, efforts made to identify vulnerable groups, challenges and realities of access to justice and perspectives for future intervention and collaboration on addressing sexual violence against girls in the study area. This study has highlighted the challenges of child survivors of sexual violence and reviewed the related laws, policies and their implementation and gaps, status of access to justice situation and has provided recommendations accordingly. The study was an explorative research that explains an existing phenomenon of sexual violence and access to justice among girls, vulnerable groups, offenders, rationale behind and possible interventions for promoting safer environment for girls. In general, the entire study was vested upon the focused group discussions, district consultation and an interview with key informants of the respective places. The study had sessions with 190 participants in focused group discussion from all the ten study districts, likewise, 144 participants' during district consultation and 43 in key informant interview. The findings of the study are extracted as listed below: Understanding of sexual violence: The main finding is that the definition of sexual violence varies amongst the civil society actors, key informants and girls and boys. Key informants' understanding is highly confined within the domain of existing domestic legal definition and limited understanding of various aspects of sexual violence and its determinants. Acceptance of sexual violence in the community: The conventional beauty concept and masculine socialization of sex has enabled wider social acceptance of cases of teasing, early child marriage, touching forms of sexual abuse and unsafe touches. Community people, girls and their families are being seen as playing an ignorant role in the non-touching form of sexual violence. Even child marriages are taken as the traditional practices and cultural norms. The ways of looking at the victims of the age above 15 years do vary from the perception towards child victim; adolescents are taken as a subject of sympathy whereas adolescents are directly poked on her character and her previous behaviour. Prevalence of sexual violence: Cases of rape and attempt to rape were found to be the most prevalent forms of cases of sexual violence which were reported. Also few of the cases are emerging as new forms such as cyber crimes including sexual violence through the use of ICT. Basically, the nature of cases like sexual harassment, teasing, molestation, non-touching sexual violence, and sexual violence conducted by largely powerful and influential people go underreported or are mostly inclined towards the hostility. Risk places: The study has identified both the private and public places as risky places for sexual violence, the finding being supported by case stories and participants' anecdotal sharing. This does not mean the children's mobility and freedom shall be control and all places are bad for them; but this highlights the importance of safety audit, safety measures and safety practices should be ensured to live a safe mobility and enjoyment of places through security measures. Impact of the sexual violence: The study team has found out that immediate consequences of sexual violence incidences, as shared by the participants, are physical injuries, psychosocial trauma, early pregnancy, drop out, displacement and self harm and negative perception of the society towards victim and family. Based on the case studies and information from the participants, the study has identified political, social and economic impact of sexual violence in the community as well. Perceived causes of sexual violence: The control and power of an offender over the vulnerable/victim population is a core cause of sexual violence as identified by the study team. Here the word 'power' depicts trust, relationship, economic opportunities, social status and control over the facilities. Other grounds of sexual violence as discovered by the study team in these 10 study districts are victim related reasons, offender related reasons, socio-cultural reasons and economic reasons. Access to justice: The study has come across with the status of access to justice broadly in three areas: availability of services to victim and family, supporting factors on formal justice procedure and hindering factors on formal justice. The study attempted to explore positive practices and experiences of children, civil society and key stakeholders on accessing justice and relief, empowering support for the victim and victim's family in case of sexual violence against girls. The process explored key state authorities, key non-state actors, positive experiences/effects of their services and negative experiences and effects along with suggested improvement on the practice. Hindrances factor on access to justice: The study identified various hindering factors on accessing justice as explored through case studies and shared by the participants during the study. Broadly the hindering factors have been categorized as social, cultural barriers, economic factors and structural obstacles. Details related to these findings are available in the report below. The conclusion and recommendations are primarily on the grounds of dynamics of sexual violence: the study explored major victim and vulnerable group, the offenders, the risk places, the contributing factors in the dynamics of sexual violence against girls in sample districts. The study explored the phenomena of access to justice when there is an enabling environment with facilitation from adults and duty bearer agencies. The friendliness, trust and positive environment at various service providing agencies contribute for strengthening access to justice for victims. The study explored the context and factors that enable the environment for phenomena of denial of justice to the victims of sexual violence. The negative experiences and perception developed with the past failure incidences result in losing trust on the justice system. In addition to that, factors related to family prestige and neighbourhood relation also result in denial of justice. This report has suggested recommendations consisting enhancement of awareness and level of understanding; promoting self defence and prevention strategies; breaking silence and increasing reporting; improvement of justice procedure; strengthening NGOs' activities; addressing socio-cultural and economic barriers.