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Nepal’s NHRI to conduct gender audit

Graphic: Commissioner Mohna Ansari with APF secretariat staff

The National Human Rights Commission of Nepal will begin a comprehensive audit to assess the extent to which gender is considered across its work.

The National Human Rights Commission of Nepal will shortly begin a comprehensive audit to assess the extent to which gender is considered in the organisation's operations, policies and work program.

Commissioner Mohna Ansari, who visited the APF secretariat in Sydney on 14 February, said the gender audit would help identify practical ways the Commission could strengthen both its internal operations and its external activities.

"Women and girls in Nepal want to be treated with equality," Commissioner Ansari said.

"As a national human rights institution, we should be a role model to promote what gender equality looks like in practice," she said.

Commissioner Ansari said that conducting a gender audit was a recommendation from the capacity assessment the APF undertook with the National Human Rights Commission of Nepal.

"We must do more to address the discrimination and violence that women and girls face on a daily basis," she said. "What they want is equality and security."


Graphic: Commissioner Ansari talks with a woman in a rural village


According to the Commission's recently released annual report, women continue to be financially dependent on men and commonly experience exploitation, injustice, exclusion and harmful social practices.

Girls are pressed into marriage on payment of dowries, women are physically attacked following allegations of witchcraft and incidents of domestic violence and rape are reported every day, the Commission wrote in the report.

While there has been some growth in the number of women represented in politics, progress remains slow and women still lag behind men.

"As long as women and girls experience discrimination and violence, we cannot hope for our nation to prosper," Commissioner Ansari told the APF.

A recent initiative to improve the way that police respond to women and girls reporting sexual assault was one area where the Commission was making a positive difference, she said.

Commissioner Ansari also acknowledged the support provided by the APF to the National Human. Rights Commission of Nepal.

Following an APF regional workshop on the human rights of women and girls, held in Kathmandu in 2015, the APF assisted the Commission to undertake a public inquiry on gender-based violence in 2016.

Two Commission staff members are currently taking part in an APF blended learning program on gender mainstreaming for national human rights institutions.

Date: 19 February 2020

Image credits

  1. Commissioner Mohna Ansari with APF secretariat staff - James Iliffe/APF
  2. Commissioner Ansari talks with a woman in a rural village - National Human Rights Commission of Nepal