Just as in previous years, this year too, the 16-day activism against gender-based violence (GBV) began with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25. The theme for 2025 is “UNiTE to End Digital Violence against All Women and Girls”. According to the United Nations, globally, one in three women is subject to different forms of violence. The UN also acknowledges that with rapid technological advancement, technology-facilitated violence against women and girls—such as cyberbullying, online sexual harassment, trolling, hate speech, stalking, image-based abuse and AI-generated deepfakes—is proliferating.

Nepal is no exception to this alarming trend. Different forms of violence against women and girls are rampant in digital spaces. As per the country’s Cyber ​​Bureau, as of mid-November of fiscal year 2025-26, approximately 2,900 complaints related to violence against women (VAW) have already been reported. Moreover, of the approximately 6,000 cases filed during the same time, 44 reached the court, of which 34 victims were women (mostly aged 18 to 25). Concomitantly, in the previous FY, more than 8,000 complaints of VAW were lodged, and in 2023-24, the number was 9,000.

This suggests that digital spaces have become accessible extensions of offline gender inequality, even as women continue to suffer from intimate partner violence at home and harassment in public places. According to Nepal Police’s Annual Factsheet on Gender-Based Violence of FY 2023-24, domestic violence accounts for 78.3 percent of all crimes against women, followed by sexual violence. Nepali women and girls thus face multiple layers of violence, yet due to fear and social stigma, many hesitate to seek help.

Nepali women have long endured violence. So, each year, successive governments, in coordination with international and national organisations, survivors, and women’s rights activists, gear up to launch awareness campaigns and discuss issues related to GBV across different parts of the country. While these are much-needed, they often fail to make a visible dent in the lives of women. Successive governments vow to conclude the unresolved sexual violence-related murder cases by investigating and ensuring justice to victims and survivors, but end up protecting perpetrators. It is vital to reach the remotest of places in Nepal with extensive education campaigns, spread more awareness on different forms of online violence and encourage women to break their silence. Punishing those who attempt to silence and suppress women’s voices is as crucial.

Nepal now has its first woman Prime Minister in Sushila Karki, who is also a former chief justice. It is natural for people to expect that she will work to end impunity against GBVs and ensure a safer society for women and girls. But the Electronic Transactions Act, which aims to regulate online transactions, the Information Technology and Cyber Security Bill and the Social Media Bill—they all lack a gender perspective. There’s a lot of work to do to shake the foundations of gender violence.

Challenging entrenched patriarchal values that allow men to commit heinous crimes against women is the responsibility of everyone in society, including political parties. Parties can, for instance, provide more space for women in the upcoming elections—and in general having more women at the decision-making level would help. Yet the greater goal is to create a society where men and women, young as well as old, start seeing gender based violence as a collective moral failure.