INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
KATHMANDU, APRIL 2Even one year after Nepal accepted the Human Rights Council's universal periodic review
recommendation that it should decriminalise abortion, the government has not taken any concrete steps to amend the prevailing laws that
Amnesty International Nepal accuses govt of violating human rights
Decriminalise abortion, say women rights activists
In 2018, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Committee had also
recommended that Nepal fully decriminalise abortion in all cases and legalise it at least in the cases of health complications of the
mother.
Executive Director of Forum for Women, Law and Development Sabin Shrestha said many women who had suffered
miscarriages were unnecessarily indicted in abortion case mainly due to criminalisation of abortion
Shrestha said the government needed to amend the existing laws in line with the CEDAW and UPR recommendation to decriminalise abortion
"As long as abortion is criminalised, many women continue to seek abortion in an unsafe environment which may pose risk to their health,"
Shrestha added.Legal Adviser to the Centre for Reproductive Rights Prabhakar Shrestha said the Right to Safe Motherhood and Reproductive
Health Rights Act which was supposed to be progressive turned out to be a regressive act as it invoked the punishment provision of penal
code that criminalises abortion."RSMRHR Act prohibits hospitals and doctors that have not received licence to perform abortion from
providing abortion services and thus the act continues to criminalise abortion," he argued.Advocate Nabin Shrestha said the abortion related
provision should be removed from Muluki Criminal Code as there was already a special law, the Right to Safe Motherhood and Reproductive
"As long as the Criminal Code which criminalises abortion exists, health professionals who provide abortion services in good faith are
likely to face the risk of indictment," he added.According to Sabin Shrestha, a doctor who terminated the pregnancy of an unwed girl above
18 years of age in Kaski with her consent, faced indictment along with the girl's father after the girl filed an FIR accusing her father and
the doctor of terminating her pregnancy
"In the Kaski case, the girl lodged FIR because she was incited by friends
Therefore, there should be adequate safeguards for health professionals," he added."The penal code's provision contradicts the RSMRH Act
The code says that women can terminate their foetus up to 12 weeks whereas the Act says that women can do so up to 28 weeks after meeting
some conditions," Shrestha said
Senior Manager and Officer In-Charge of Centre for Reproductive Rights Prabina Bajracharya said the conclusion of the UN Rights bodies,
including the CEDAW, was that criminalisation of abortion violates women's rights," she argued
She also said putting restriction on abortion on any pretext was like perpetuating discrimination against women."Requiring only licensed
doctors and clinicians to perform safe abortion is also a barrier for women to receiving reproductive health service," she said.A medical
doctor should not be required to receive another licence just to perform safe abortion," she said
"This restriction has deprived women in remote areas from getting safe abortion services from medical doctors," she added.A version of this
article appears in the print on April 3, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
This article first appeared/also appeared in https://thehimalayantimes.com