|
Working
to end all forms of discrimination and
violence against women
INTRODUCTION
The
Legal Aid and Consultancy Centre (LACC) is an
independent non-profit, non-partisan and
non-governmental legal resource organisation. It was
established in 1987 by a group of lawyers for the
protection and promotion of the rights and interests of
women and children. As a pioneer legal resource
organisation, it is dedicated for the advancement and
empowerment of women, uplifting of their dignity,
socio-legal status and protection of child rights. LACC
has been providing free legal aid and counselling
services to the needy women victims, as a part of its
efforts in ending violence against women, for past
twelve years.
Twelve
women lawyers are working full time in LACC. Out of
these five lawyers work in the Children Justice Center (LACC/CJC).
Other lawyers work in the Women's Rights Helpline
Project.
THE
WOMEN'S RIGHTS HELPLINE PROJECT
Women
in Nepal are increasingly subjected to violence, sexual
abuses, rape, exploitation, battering, divorce, domestic
violence and trafficking. They are subject to various
discrimination at all level of social and national
life. The woman victims of violence, rape, sexual
exploitation, abuses, polygamy, battering, forced
divorce and trafficking, needed to contact other women
related supportive service centres to seek justice and
solve their problems. But they were not to be found
then.
Against
this background, LACC established the Women's Rights
Helpline Project (Helpline) on January 01, 1999, to
provide free institutional legal aid to the woman
victims of violence, rape, sexual exploitation, abuses,
polygamy, battering, forced divorce and trafficking
The
Helpline project was initially implemented as a one
year pilot project with the assistance from the
Netherlands Development Assistance (NEDA), Programme.
Due to the success of the programme and its usefulness,
the programme is now being continued with the
sponsorship of the Royal Danish Embassy/DANIDA
Kathmandu.
The
Women's Rights Helpline Project has created a database.
It has been providing legal information and referral
services to the needy women. The project also functions
as a legal aid and counselling service, referral and
data collection centre on violence against women, aiming
to contribute on ending violence against women.
Initially, the Helpline provided its free services to
women in the Kathmandu Valley and provided essential
legal advice, referrals, and friendly empathetic
listeners to their problems. The information about the
services offered by the Helpline project was
disseminated through media campaign and radio spots,
which were very successful. As a result, women have been
using this service to vent their frustrations and obtain
useful information and advice to their personal
problems. Consequently, the Helpline Project now
assists over 89% more women with free legal aid,
counselling, mediation and court representation, each
month. The LACC/Helpline also extended the services
of the Project to the districts. It established
Women’s Rights Helpline Project in Jhapa and Doti
districts in June, 2000. There are plans to extend
Helpline services to Dhanusha, Surkhet and Baglung
districts
SERVICES
PROVIDED
The
Helpline project has devised a multi-pronged approach
to address and combat the violence against women
through counselling, mediation, conciliation services
and legal intervention on behalf of women victims,
expanding services to three districts, carrying out
awareness raising and sensitization activities at the
community level and strengthening of legal networking.
Since
the inception of the project in January, 1999 the
project has assisted 5892 number of women victims and
provided them with preliminary legal advice till May 30,
2002. It handled 3500 (during January 1999 to May 2000)
and 2392 cases (during June 2000 to May 2002). They have
also benefited further by visiting our office to receive
extensive legal assistance and in some cases, court
representation. Likewise, 433
lawsuits were initiated and are being
represented in the court by our attorneys and 222 cases
have been decided in favour of women. Very few cases
have been defeated in the District Court. The project
takes up the defeated cases to the Appellate Court
and sometimes in the Supreme Court. 211 cases are under
court proceedings in the court of Lalitpur, Kathmandu
and Bhaktapur. Most of the divorce seeking women and
their husband are called to office for providing
counselling. Many of them have dropped the idea of
divorce upon receiving continuous counselling from the
project. They are living with their husband happily.
Thus, the project has contributing to prevent the
family break-ups and violence against women.
The
Helpline Project in Jhapa district has been handling
229 cases of women victims at the end of May 2003. Out
of which 175 cases of women have been filed in the
district court. 54 cases have been settled through
counseling, mediation and compromise in CDO and police
office. 31 cases have been decided by the court in
favour of women and 142 cases are continuing in the
court. 3 cases have filed in the Appellate Court.
The
Helpline Project in Doti district has registered 118
cases in the District Bar Association at the end of May
2003. Out of which 48 cases of women victims have been
filed in the court. 28 cases has been decided by the
court in favour of Women and 21 cases are continuing in
the court. 70 cases have been settled in CDO and police
office through counselling,
mediation and compromise.
AIMS
AND OBJECTIVES
-
To
assist women victims who need prompt legal advice and
counselling, especially those who are more susceptible
to domestic violence, social and religious constraints
and repression, and can only speak if they are
guaranteed anonymity.
-
To
assist woman victims of violence, rape, sexual
exploitation, abuses, polygamy, bigamy, domestic
violence, battering, forced divorce and trafficking in
seeking justice through legal and court procedures.
-
To
provide free legal representation to clients for
filing lawsuits in the court.
-
To
grant financial assistance for court expenses to
needy women victims.
-
To
contribute for ending the violence against women.
-
To
implement Beijing Platform for Action Declaration
-
To
provide Telephone-counselling services to the needy
woman victims.
-
To
extend its services to other districts and rural areas
outside the Kathmandu Valley.
-
To
lobby with and pressurise the Government officials and
Members of Parliament to enact laws for better
protection of women's safety
and security
THE
TARGET GROUP
The
woman victims of violence, rape, sexual exploitation,
abuses, polygamy, bigamy, domestic violence, battering,
forced divorce and trafficking, who need legal aid,
counselling, mediation services, court representation
and other assistance.
THE SERVICES
LACC's
Women's Rights Helpline Project has been providing the
following services:
Legal
services:
The Helpline's staff attorneys provide counselling to
telephone callers and walk-in victim-clients with free
legal advice, mediation services, and court
representation. Under especially difficult
circumstances, financial assistance to cover court
expenses is also offered to needy women victims.
Women
callers can remain anonymous while receiving free
preliminary legal advice from our staff attorneys and
phone counsellors. Phone-callers also make use of the
free mediation services and legal representation by
scheduling a visit to our office. The Helpline office
helps the needy women, who do not have access to a phone
or who prefer to speak to our team of attorneys in
person.
Referral
services:
The victim-clients or the phone-callers are also
referred to supportive services provided by other
organizations, such as emergency shelters for women and
children fleeing abuses, victim support programs, family
planning projects, rehabilitation clinics for
addictions, suicide prevention, human trafficking,
HIV-AIDS, drug prevention services etc, as per the
needs.
Helpline also helps the clients to identify and contact
the Police officers, Police Women’s Cells, and medical
practitioners in order to facilitate the filing of
complaints and obtaining medical certificates required
by the court or police. About 12% of all clients are
referred mostly to the police, CDO office,
rehabilitation centres, shelter homes, de-addiction
services and family planning services.
Database:
All incoming phone calls and the interviews of walk-in
client-victims are registered and stored in the
database. The statistics are valuable tools. They are
periodically analysed for identifying and determining
the nature and gravity of the problems faced by women.
The
incidence of violence in the lives of Nepalese women is
hard to measure, given the private or hidden nature of
most violent acts and the cultural barriers that keep
women from reporting theses crimes. The data collected
at the Women's Rights Helpline is a reliable indicator
of the prevalence of the problem.
The
data collected indicates that on an average, 80% clients
were victims of violence i.e., domestic violence, sexual
harassment, rape and dowry-related violence. They
suffered from domestic violence, mostly on a daily
basis. The vast majority of women contacting the
Helpline are either victims of battering or are
afflicted by the negative consequences of their
husband's polygamy or bigamy. Battering, polygamy or
bigamy reported are the main and secondary problems
faced by women.
Majority of women blamed their husband's alcohol
consumption or addiction as the main cause for domestic
violence. However, studies now suggest that though
alcohol triggers the violence, but it is not the sole
cause of domestic violence. The Helpline staff have
referred innumerable women to the limited rehabilitation
services for alcoholics located in the
Kathmandu Valley. These phone-callers tend to insist
that if the drinking were somehow stopped, so would the
violence they suffered.
Both
the legal and illegal polygamy or bigamy are a
widespread problem with very negative consequences for
the women involved. According to the clients, once the
husband marries a second wife, a hostile atmosphere at
the home eventually leads to periodic beatings of the
wife. Furthermore, most battering cases related to
bigamy and polygamy cases are excessively violent, since
they are perpetrated not only by the husband, but also
by the first or the second wife. Mostly, husband's
excuse for marrying a second wife is ascribed to first
wife’s failure in giving birth to any children or giving
birth to only daughters. It has also been reported as a
way to obtain another dowry.
While
the data for cases of divorce, maintenance, alimony and
property-partition reveal that the majority of these
clients wanted to distance themselves from their husband
due to their battering related to polygamy and bigamy.
Women tend to file for property-partition, alimony or
maintenance expenses from the husband, only if the
polygamy or bigamy is the cause. Whereas divorce is more
commonly chosen when battering is involved. Actually,
half of all divorce cases claim can be attributed to the
severe violence they are subjected to at their home.
This make them to consider for seeking divorce.
Consequently, most women who are subjected to battering
will choose the most drastic and difficult solution to
end the problem – divorce. The social stigma, isolation,
and lack of property rights in divorce, is preferable to
many women who cannot continue to endure the torture of
periodic beatings by the husband and some times from his
entire family.
The
data has become a very important tool for analysing
various problems faced by women and the incidence of
VAW and for raising awareness about them. * The recent
data is available upon request.
REACHING TARGET GROUP
An
ongoing and broad media campaign is a vital part of this
project. The radio spot, print media, cinema halls
slides, and outreach activities have been efficiently
spreading the message of the project. It has mainly
focused on the radio, which has a wide listenership and
reaches even the illiterate population. In fact, 87% of
all clients heard about the Helpline through the radio.
The slogan addressing the women over the radio was - "Samasya
chha? Phone garnuhos!" ( "Do you have a problem?,
Please call us!")
ACTIVITIES
The Helpline undertakes
the following activities:
-
Since
its establishment, the Helpline Project has assisted
5892 number of women and provided them with
preliminary legal advice. Its has surpassed its
indicators for success. Helpline Project helped 89%
more women over the targeted numbers during this
period. Nepalese women have become more receptive to
the services, despite the common perception that women
in this country prefer not to discuss their problems
with strangers.
-
The
Women's Rights Helpline project provides free legal
services to the women victims of violation of their
human rights. Its staff attorneys are currently
representing a total of 433 lawsuits on behalf of
women victims in different Courts, out of which 222
cases have been decided in favour of women.
211 cases are under court proceedings in the courts.
-
It
collects data which can draw attention to issues that
are important for the empowerment of women. The
statistics are valuable tools and a source of current
information on women victims. Each month the numbers
grow, making the data more reflective of various
ordeals the women must have undergone.
-
The
Women's Rights Helpline project also uses the media to
raise awareness about the phenomenon of Violence
Against Women.
Our radio spots, which
especially focus on Violence Against Women, such as
wife battering and rape, serve as daily reminders to
both women and men of the physical and mental damages
inflicted on women by these crimes.
Initially, the Project limited its target
group to the women of Kathmandu Valley only and
advertised its services mainly through FM radio
channels. Later, the Project started advertising its
services through National Radio- the Radio Nepal to
reach its service throughout the country. As a
result, 10% of clients' call are now received from
outside the Valley. Many
people both men and women have now become aware about
the services offered by the Women’s Rights Helpline
Project, due to our continued efforts to advertise our
services through media. It is now easy for any needy
woman to remember our phone number, 543-111 and
527334.
EXPANSION
OF SERVICES
The
Helpline project initially provided its services in
three districts of Kathmandu Valley - Kathmandu,
Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts. The Women's Rights
Helpline Project has acquired considerable experiences
in providing legal aid and counselling to needy women
victims in the Kathmandu Valley. However, the women of
districts and rural areas face more problems related to
violence against women.. They are more vulnerable to
domestic violence. The situation against women is
aggravated by poverty and illiteracy in these areas.
They do not have access to legal counselling and legal
aid. In order to help the women in the rural areas, the
Helpline Project was established in Jhapa and Doti
districts. There are plans to extend Helpline services
to Dhanusha, Surkhet and Baglung districts.
LACC,
the parent organisation of Helpline project has
established partnership network arrangement with the
District Bar Associations (DBAs) which has branch
offices throughout the country. This has helped the
Helpline Project to establish partnership network with
the District Bar Associations and the NGOs working for
women of Jhapa and Doti districts.
HELPLINE MATERIAL
Legal
Manual:
The Project has prepared a legal manual. This manual
contains a brief overview of the essential procedural
information needed as preliminary legal advice. It is
used by the Helpline staff during peek office hours. It
is also used to train the volunteers. The manual could
also be helpful as a study guide for law students and a
valuable reference material for Nepalese and foreign
development workers. It is available in both Nepali and
English languages
Dissemination:
In order
to inform women of their legal options, the project has
prepared brochures. These brochures deal with five main
topics such as, polygamy/bigamy, battering, rape,
women's property rights and divorce. Recently a male
brochure aimed at educating men on gender equality has
been published and distributed.
In
conclusion, Women's Rights Helpline
Project is promoting the Beijing Declaration and
Platform for Action by contributing to end Violence
Against Women.
For
Further information please contact:
The
Legal Aid and Consultancy Center (LACC)
The
Women’s Rights Helpline Project
Mailing Address: GPO Box
No. 3216. Kathmandu, Nepal
Street Address: Pulchowk, Lalitpur, Nepal
Tel.
No. 00977-1-5543 111
Fax
No. 00977-1-5523 871
Email:
lacc@wlink.com.np
Website: http://www.laccnepal.com
Website:
http://www.geocities.com/lacc_nepal
|
