Every now and then Nepal is reminded of its misogyny, when a rape case becomes so tragic that the country is taken aback by its own violent gender hierarchy.
Girls who do not survive gain national attention, making the country rally against rape and gender based violence.
Civic discourse and media coverage spotlight names such as Nirmala Panta and Inisha BK because their stories are too jarring, too mysterious, and too tragic not to tell and retell.
But there are more survivors, in its literal sense, of those living after enduring repeated violence, verbal and physical abuse, intimate partner violence and blatant misogyny. Nepal's collective attention does not dwell on those crimes, or easily tolerates them.
In 2024, Nepal police reports put the number of rape cases at 2,507. The number of domestic violence cases was 16,416. Behind these numbers are women who have had their dignity stripped away, often violently — in 91.1% of cases by someone she knows.
Rape or sexual against women is also a political weapon used by men, and example is the case of Amisha Parajuli. When she spoke in favour of K P Oli, who was politically unpopular post Gen Z, she was inundated with threats of violence and rape.
Sexual violence is a tool of power that men have often wielded when they want to shrink women’s space in society. Female candidates who campaigned in the March election were met with intense sexual objectification. Women survivors are accused of scheming to honeytrap influential men such as Sagar Lamsal aka Bale, Sandip Lamichhane, or Paul Shah.
In March, Suraj Singh Thakuri’s Inside the Bunker on YouTube featured two women with indescribable accounts of surviving violence. “I believe I am a fighter,” said one of the survivors, comparing herself to Nirmala Panta. Even though she survived, she says she has been denied justice because of lack of support from family and her perpetrators enjoying impunity.
She is sheltered by Rakshya Nepal. The organisation is advocating for death penalty for perpetrators of rape. Another survivor endured rape not just from her father but with other men he pimped for. In Thakuri’s studio she recounts being forced as a child to have sex with men as her father watched.
She attempted suicide 14 times and had multiple abortions. She confided in her mother who was in denial. The father is now in jail sentenced for life, which she believes is not enough punishment for him.
Gita KC Darnal, the founder of Sajha Sahayatri Nepal that shelters survivors of rape and other sexual violence, says most were abused by someone they knew, particularly immediate male family members. Some were girls as young as five when they were rescued.
Darnal says that perpetrators of rape must be separated from other criminals because of the nature of their crime. Society condemns theft or murder but outrage towards sexual and gender-based violence is left to the subjective judgement of people in law enforcement.
“As long as people are not taught to respect women, to see women as worthy of respect and as long as people understand consent, the problem of rape will persist,” Darnal told us. “In prisons, men and underage boys must be reeducated against their misogyny and taught skills to reintegrate back into society so that they do not recommit crimes.”
LAWLESS
Nepal's laws have played a role in legitimising rape and denied justice to survivors through the gaps and hierarchies they encode. The two-year statute of limitations on rape is based on a penal code that tells survivors that their trauma has an expiry date. The standard argument is that evidence deteriorates over time and becomes unreliable.
"If evidence degradation is the primary concern, what meaningful legal distinction separates 180 days from one year, two years, or three years? Biological evidence does not survive any of these windows,” says human rights lawyer Jesselina Rana.
The evidence rationale, she argues, is neither a principled legal position nor a survivor-centric one, but rather an excuse that has been recycled to justify each incremental extension while resisting full repeal.
"Most serious crimes in Nepal carry no comparable time restriction," she adds, arguing that the statute of limitations on rape functions as a targeted barrier that applies specifically to survivors of sexual violence. It is a choice that reflects social stigma written into law rather than any neutral legal logic.
Under Section 229(2) of the National Penal (Code) Act, 2017, as amended in 2022, an adult survivor has two years from the date of the crime to file a complaint. For a minor, that clock does not begin until she turns 18. Incest, meanwhile, carries no time limit at all.
Rana adds, ”The one glaring provision, even within an already limited timeframe is where the offence of rape is committed against someone in detention, under captivity, or held hostage. In those cases, the window shrinks to just three months from the date of release of the person. That is the shortest limit of all, applied to some of the most vulnerable survivors.”
Nepal has ratified international treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but the country’s sentencing framework for rape directly contradicts both.
Punishment should reflect the nature of the crime or culpability of the perpetrator, but Nepal’s law links the sentence to the age of the victim.
Perpetrators of violence against older survivors get lighter punishment, placing the burden of rape on the victim rather than on the person who committed it.
The problem is compounded in cases of marital rape. The National Penal Code caps the sentence at a maximum of five years, with no provision to account for aggravating factors or the severity of the offence. This does not treat marital rape as rape, but as a lesser category of crime. It sends the message that rape in marriage is less of a crime.
By recognising only women and girls as rape victims, the law also renders the sexual violence experienced by men, boys, and transgender individuals legally invisible, signalling that their suffering does not merit the same protection.
Established after the Maoists integrated into mainstream politics, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission received over 66,000 complaints but resolved none involving conflict-related sexual violence. The definition of sexual violence in the TRC Act falls short of international standards, and there is a lack of victim-centred approaches.
Says Darnal: “The police practice of pushing survivors to make financial settlements, combined with judgmental questioning and the undervaluing of survivor testimony in court, means that even the protections that exist on paper are routinely denied in practice.”
The Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Sobita Gautam has formed a committee to reevaluate the existing laws on rape, but the parameters for reevaluation of the laws have not been revealed.
Jesselina Rana’s recommendations to the parliamentary committee are that legislative reform must be grounded in evidence and built through consultation with human rights lawyers, women’s rights advocates, and civil society organisations, rather than being drafted in isolation at the ministry.
For example, there has to be legal recognition of intimate partner violence as a distinct category, separate from the broader and often inadequate framing of domestic violence.
She says: "There is currently no legal definition of consent in Nepali law, and that must change. We need to refer to international standards and build more progressive frameworks within the law that take into account the realities survivors face.”
The Ministry of Education has an equally critical role to play. The national curriculum needs a serious re-evaluation, with meaningful and comprehensive sex education.
"We also need to look at how young people are consuming media and engaging in conversations within the manosphere," Rana adds. “Why do men, young and old, feel it is so easy to send rape threats online? What are the long-term implications of normalising such behaviour?"
Whatever legal frameworks there are, enforcement remains weak due to deeply entrenched patriarchal norms, low reporting rates driven by stigma and fear of social ostracism and victim blaming, and an underfunded justice system where cases are many a time settled informally under community pressure.
The new government must also address the structural drivers of women's economic dependence and underrepresentation in political and judicial institutions, since countries with greater gender parity consistently see lower rates of sexual violence.
Ayusha Chalise is a communication and development scholar specialising in how politics is experienced in the digital space. This is her regular column, Siberia, in Nepali Times.