CWAD organized a second consultation meeting with the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens (MoWCSC) on March 4th, 2021 (Falgun 20th, 2077) from 2pm till 5 pm via zoom meeting to celebrate the upcoming International Women’s Day on March 8, 2021. The slogan for this year was #ChooseToChallange. Ms. Bandana Rana prepared a paper highlighting the international practices and the effective way to implement them. Similarly, we had organized our first consultation meeting with the Ministry of Women on 22nd January 2021 via Zoom, where the Secretary of Women Ministry Miss Yamuna Khatiwada (Baskota) highlighted the Gender Responsive Budget and Ministry work and action for women empowerment through her paper presentation. As these programs helped us share our views as well as aware about the work done by the government as well as the international practices with various instruments on the women’s participation and its effective implementation in the context of Nepal.
Focusing on the upcoming 8th March International Women’s Day 2021 Slogan #ChoseToChallenge, Project Coordinator Prasanna Raut started the consultation meeting then CWAD team member Bhagyashree Rawal presented the welcomed note on behalf of CWAD.
Prof. Dr. Shashi Adhikary facilitated the program by highlighting the propose of celebrating this day, as it is considered for the social, economic, cultural and political achievements and access of women globally. She introduced the paper presentations and her topics title along with the agenda of the program. She recalled and reminded about the paper presentation by Secretary of Women Ministry Ms. Yamuna Khatiwada (Baskota) on government initiatives for the national instrument and practice regarding gender equality and women empowerment.
Ms. Bandana Rana presented the paper on the topic “International Instruments that promote women’s participation and its application in Nepal”. She began her presentation overview with the history of Convention on the elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) establishment and UN and Gender Mandate International Laws and Commitments. Along with 189 countries, Nepal also ratified CEDAW covering of human rights of women for establishing equality and removing all forms of discrimination against women. In the same way, after the long advocacy in SDGs on goal 5 – gender equality and women’s empowerment were established to targets 9 goals. Ms. Rana mentioned that constitution of Nepal, 2015 is one of the progressive constitutions in the world in regards of the women political participation. Ms. Rana urged among the representative of Civil Society Organization representatives in front line dedicated on creating gender equality society as well as increase women’s participation in each sector to focused on the implementation. Furthermore, Rana again requested all CSOs to be actively involved and present our strong stand on the implementation and make the government more accountable and transparent during this process.
She expressed her concern in an increase of GBV cases during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the statistics 33% increase in GBV cases in the developed countries such as France, Canada, UK came within 2/3 months of COVID-19. Similarly, was assumed to be more than 50% increase in GBV cases in the developing countries like Nepal during the lockdown of COVID-19 pandemic. As it can be considered a shadow pandemic that hit and impacted the women and children. Thus, informed all the member countries to prepare national response plan to be women centric. In this context, CEDAW has developed the 9 points guidance note to address how the women should be kept into the center and which area need to be addressed.
Secretary of Women Ministry Ms. Yamuna Khatiwada (Baskota) shared her latest data from the MoWCSC during this consultation meeting. She stresses on the national instrument and practice regarding gender equality and women empowerment. She added that Nepal government has adopted the various international plan and policies to address the women problems as well as prepare the guideline to address the women critical situation during and post COVID-19 pandemic. In this process she also focused on the Constitution of Nepal 2015 which guarantee the women human rights. According to her equality rights, women rights, social justice rights, social security rights which all falls under the fundamental rights which is one of the biggest achievement of women guarantee by Constitution of Nepal 2015. Another biggest achievement of Nepalese women is the establishment of national women commission and 2015 constitution regard national women commission as a constitutional body. This commission is not only established for the protection and promotion of women rights, as well as monitoring the international treaty regarding legal implementation and women empowerment equally. Similarly, civil code 2074 and criminal code 2074 covering the women issues and focused on the National Gender equality policy, 2077. She also informed the participants about the Nepal government initiatives and providing several facilities for the women.
The floor was opened for discussion after the fruitful and impactful presentation from our Presenter Ms. Bandana Rana and Special Guest Secretary Ms. Yamuna Khatiwoda (Baskota). Kunda Sharma from WHR, Shanti Kaphle from FRESH International, Anita Thapaliya from LACC, Sajana Maharjan, Meera Dhungana from FWLD, Indira Sirish from INOLAG, Palita Thapa from National Women Commission, Uma Shah from Sathi Nepal and many more shared their views and opinions about the current context of Nepal.
The concluding remarks by Prof. Dr Shashi Adhikary and committed to work together more in future as well as collectively work for the protection and promotion of human rights of marginalized group of people in Nepal. She also thanked the Special Guest Ms. Yamuna Khatiwada (Baskota) Secretary of Women Ministry and Ms. Badana Rana Paper Presenter, for their effective and impactful presentation and representative from CSOs for the meaningful participation and valuable suggestion.