National
TRC: Consultations on for reparation
After completing consultation with other victims, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is starting talks next week with the insurgency-era victims of rape and sexual violence.After completing consultation with other victims, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is starting talks next week with the insurgency-era victims of rape and sexual violence. Two female members of the commission—Manchala Jha and Madhabi Bhatta—will hold the consultations in all the seven provinces.
The TRC earlier conducted group consultations in the seven provinces and in Kathmandu to gather feedback from the victims. However, separate sessions are planned with rape victims to maintain their secrecy. “We’ll be holding door to door consultations keeping in mind the sensitivity of victims,” Jha told the Post. Some 100 such victims will be listened to before finalising a reparation policy.
Respecting the seriousness and sensitivity of victims, the commission is preparing to make separate recommendations of reparation for the victims of rape and sexual violence. Reparation is an important aspect of transitional justice.
Reparation means payment or other assistance given to victims. Though the families of victims killed and disappeared during the decade-long insurgency have received cash support of Rs1 million, no other measure has been offered.
Issuing identity cards to conflict victims, short- and long-term livelihood programmes, rehabilitation of the displaced, employment for the victims, free education for the victims’ children, free health services, and skill and professional training are other recommendations.
Ensuring security and protection of human rights, construction of parks and memorials in the name of victims, setting up museums and naming public infrastructure after victims are other demands. The war-era victims of abduction, maiming, torture, rape and sexual violence, seizure of property, and forced eviction and displacement are eligible for the reparation schemes.
Conflict victims say the reparations should be based on the United Nation’s Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims adopted in 2005. The Conflict Victims Common Platform is also preparing recommendations for reparation following the delay from the transitional justice bodies in doing so.