and to prosecute and penalize the perpetrators when found guilty. In addition, the Ordinance grants the Commission with full authority over reconciliation, while it should be a matter of consent of the parties involved. Moreover, the Ordinance does not ensure a fully independent, impartial Commission essential to win victims’ trust and confidence. Aside from criticism over amnesties, the adoption of Ordinance did not entail any consultations with civil society, conflict affected people, or human rights organizations. Instead, the Ordinance was adopted through a joint decision of the four major political parties. In fact, the final version of the Ordinance was not shared publicly. Even the National Human Rights Commission claimed to have been denied access to the final version of the Ordinance. Therefore, criticism of the Ordinance is based on unofficial and informally retrieved copies. However, it is significant that during the drafting process of the Bill, public consultations were held on the draft with civil society and victim groups. Based on a version of the Ordinance retrieved and commented on by the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, the Ordinance does contain an article on the minimum inclusion of women in the Ordinance’s commission: Article 3(1) states that the Commission shall comprise of “five members, with minimum one woman.”15 The establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as envisaged in the CPA and in the Interim Constitution, would constitute a major achievement in terms of transitional justice mechanisms. However, mere establishment of a TRC that is for political expediency and does not address the victims’ concerns and rights and lacks national ownership does not guarantee truth and justice.
of family of deceased. The reasons behind the low number of women recipients in other categories include: lack of women’s access and control over ancestral property; lack of official documents such as identity cards, citizenship, marriage and birth certificates; ignorance of procedures; restrictions on mobility; and most importantly, lack of information on relief programs. As the information is disseminated through local governance structures such as LPC, VDC and municipalities via notice, only those living near these offices are likely to get the information. Moreover, illiterate victims are unable to read the information provided in written form and are unable to fill in necessary application forms. Regarding the high number of women recipients in the family of deceased category, this is due to the wife being the immediate beneficiary. Though the Interim Relief program was not adequate enough to enable the victims to develop sustainable means of livelihood as intended, it did help them address their basic immediate needs and get released from their debt to some degree. However, there has been a social impact on the recipients, particularly female recipients whose husbands were killed. They were accused of profiting from their deceased husbands, while many of them felt guilty for receiving “blood money.” During a regional consultation with conflict-affected women and girls in Banke in 2010, a participant in the consultation shared: “I cried the whole night the day I took a check of a hundred thousand rupees for my disappeared husband.”
Since fiscal year (FY) 2008/09, a total of 62,747 individuals have received compensation as indicated in the table below. Though the actual number of female recipients for this fiscal year could not be obtained due to the lack of gender disaggregated data, previous years’ data shows that women constitute quite a low number of recipients in all categories, except under the category
In Nepal, a sustainable, viable peace is not possible without reparations. It is important to distinguish between compensation and reparation. Reparation has a key element as “…satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition include such individual and collective elements as revelation of truth, public acknowledgement of the facts and acceptance of responsibility, prosecution of perpetrators, search for disappeared and identification of remains, the restoration of the dignity of victims through commemoration and other means, activities aimed at remembrance and education and at prevention the recurrence of similar crimes.”16 It is particularly important that all of these elements of reparation be implemented, to heal women’s wounds, address their pain and suffering, and enable them to recover fully physically, psychologically, as well as spiritually.
15 The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Comments on the Nepal “Commission on Investigation of Disappeared Persons, Truth and Reconciliation Ordinance – 2069 (2013), Geneva: OHCHR, 3 April 2013, p. 8.
16 “What is reparation?” accessed August 20, 2013 http://www.redress.org/what-isreparation/what-is-reparation
Indicator 9 – Percentage of women (versus men) who receive economic packages in conflict resolution and reconstruction processes
198
Women Count 2013 Global Civil Society Monitoring Report