News
Forensic Workshops Prepare Trainees to Train Their Colleagues
Due to a decade-long civil insurgency—during which forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and summary execution were common practice—a culture of impunity threatens to cripple Nepal’s political transition and to corrode public confidence in government institutions. The country’s legal and law enforcement communities are struggling to combat this phenomenon. Read more »»
Nepalese Network to Focus on Investigating and Prosecuting Human Traffickers
Though reliable statistics are difficult to obtain, trafficking in persons—specifically for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor within the country and abroad—is a growing problem in Nepal. As documented by the U.S. Department of State, law enforcement officials report that human trafficking is “increasingly dominated by well-organized syndicates that are often family-based and involved in other criminal activities such as drug trafficking.” Read more »»
Constitutional Expert Visits Nepal
As Nepal emerges from a decade-long civil insurgency and grapples with secular democracy after 240 years of Hindu monarchy, its Constituent Assembly (CA), the country’s 601-member interim legislature, has been tasked with drafting a new constitution. The CA is working to determine the nation’s judicial architecture by April 2011. Read more »»
Programs
Building forensic capacity
The ABA Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) is working with local governmental and non-governmental institutions to enhance their capacity to collect ante mortem data, to conduct exhumations and forensic analysis and to increase the availability, accuracy and admissibility of criminal evidence to help combat impunity for major human rights violations, including forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. This comprehensive two-year program features activities designed to educate communities affected by gross human rights violations about their legal rights and remedies. It also informs them about the importance of forensic evidence in establishing accountability and elicits their cooperation in identifying burial sites and sharing ante mortem data. Program activities, including trainings and consultancies by ABA ROLI pro bono experts, are aimed at boosting the technical competency of institutions to conduct forensic evaluations and preserve, compile and prepare reliable DNA evidence and to enhance the capacity of justice sector personnel to use DNA evidence to pursue legal claims against perpetrators of human rights abuses.
The program, funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, draws on the specialized skills of a leading Nepali human rights non-governmental organization, Advocacy Forum, the National Human Rights Commission, the National Forensic Science Laboratory and an internationally recognized forensic anthropology organization.Combating women’s trafficking
Through a separate program funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, the ABA Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) addresses the growing problem of women’s trafficking in Nepal. The program targets trafficking from three angles: raising the awareness of and empowering potential victims, building the competence of key anti-human trafficking-related institutions to improve the quality of criminal investigations and facilitating better systemic coordination between governmental and civil society stakeholders. Each component of this innovative two-year program fills discrete gaps. The program seeks to decrease the incidence of women’s trafficking while improving investigative effectiveness, heightening the quality and utility of statistical data on women’s trafficking and increasing prosecutions and convictions.
The program is being implemented in collaboration with several Nepali organizations, including the Forum for Women, Law and Development, a leading women’s legal advocacy non-governmental organization; the National Human Rights Commission, a quasi-independent body chartered to investigate apparent or alleged human rights violations; and the Kathmandu School of Law.Background
This multi-ethnic Himalayan country of 28 million people lies at a political crossroads. Nepal struggles to emerge from a decade-long insurgency that witnessed thousands of deaths and human rights abuses. With a newly elected legislature empowered to draft a constitution, Nepal is also embarking on an exciting journey as a secular and democratic republic after 240 years as a Hindu kingdom. Its future is at once both promising and uncertain. The ABA Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) has implemented a program to seize upon this historical moment by operating multi-dimensional and sustainable rule of law promotion programs.
