January 2009: Nepal

With funding from OSI, WCW collaborated with the Forum for Women Law and Development, the premier women’s rights organization in Nepal, to galvanize the women’s, children’s and disability rights movements at a conference. The conference also brought together various representative of Nepal’s new Constituent Assembly (including the Speaker of the Constituent Assembly, parliamentarians from different minority ethnic communities, and two parliamentarians with disabilities).

Major Result: The new Constitution that is in the process of being drafted will include disability as a prohibited ground of disability.

Provisions in the Civil Code that discriminate against women with disabilities both on the grounds of gender and disability will be challenged in court (i.e., husband currently has the right to take a second wife if his wife is disabled during marriage).

Public Interest Litigation on reproductive health and rights will be filed directly to the Supreme Court requesting for specific facilities such as reservation of beds for women with disabilities in maternity wards of both private and public hospitals, availability of disabled friendly facilities (low beds, sign language interpreters, etc), and special counseling for pre- and post-natal care, etc.