Starting this month, Nepal Monitor will release a bi-monthly report, which will summarize interesting patterns or trends in reports recorded by our team. Each report will highlight key categories — including, but not limited to, human rights abuses, gender-based violence, or security threats — and offer basic descriptive statistics on the incidence of each category in the dataset. We will also include maps to give our readers a feel for the spatial distribution of human right and security incidents in Nepal. We hope that this report will be of value to Nepal watchers and human rights defenders everywhere.

For May and June 2016, NepalMonitor.org recorded 474 reports related to human rights and security in Nepal. Of these, 280 reports were related to gender-based violence, politically disruptive behavior, and human rights.

Gender-Based Violence

There were 154 reports related to gender-based violence recorded in May and June. The majority of these reports fell into four categories: 76 featured rape or attempted rape, 38 featured child abuse, and 19 related to each of domestic violence and human trafficking (some incidents may feature multiple subcategories. Thus, summing the number of incidents for each subcategory would yield a number greater than 154). Fifteen reports, the plurality, were in Kathmandu. The majority of reports were located in the Terai, with the greatest concentration of reports in the Eastern Development Region; Siraha and Saptari alone saw a combined 23 reports (see Figures 1 and 2).

Politically Disruptive Behavior

There were 36 reports in the last two months that were related to both security and featured a political party. Of these, Netra Bikram Chand’s CPN(M) was involved in 22 incidents. The party continued their tactics of assaulting and publicly humiliating government officials, vandalizing property including that of NGOs working in earthquake relief, and committing arson on NCELL towers. Several incidents were also related to Bandhas called by Chand’s CPN(M) in the Karnali region on June 3 and nationwide on June 9. Seven incidents recorded were related to protests of the United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) and the Federal Alliance, mostly in Kathmandu and the Terai (see Figure 3). 

Human Rights

There were 105 human rights-related reports in May and June. The bulk of these were related to issues of conflict victims and transitional justice (49). Many of these reports concerned the safety of victims who reported war-time era abuses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons and calls for their protection. We also continue to keep a close eye on various types of human rights abuses, including incidents related to journalists (4), abuses for allegedly practicing witchcraft (4), children’s rights (18), torture (5), and caste discrimination (4) (see Figure 4).