(The organization has developed their own Strategy and Operational Plan (SOP) 2017-2022 in the field of Development. According to context following themes are carried out by Organization.)
Promoting Access to Justice to Combat Gender-Based Violence
Violence against women and girls is the most frequent, silenced and unpunished type of human rights violation in districts of Nepal particularly in sunsari including Terai/Mahesh region. It is a severe issue in our country where young women often find themselves vulnerable to both public and domestic violence. The need of the hour is to sensitize women groups in the communities and increase access to support measures, including access to services such as shelters and legal and psychological support.
In the context of our socio-economic condition where a large number of young educated people including a huge number of educated female are jobless. They cannot contribute to the socio-economic development of themselves and their neighbors. Our AIM-Nepal is aimed at promoting prosperity peace processes among colleges, families and communities. With the aid of women groups they can voice to their concerns, hold discussion and debates on their situation and thus will recognize the weaknesses of a socio-economical process and will take up the measures to correct them. In current situation when marginalized women/girl such as Dalit, Muslim, Janajati, Aadibasi and Poor of our areas are frequently marginalized or excluded from socio-economical building and reconstruction activities due to their poverty, lack skill/education and awareness, this project utilizes a holistic, live hood process that includes teaching for and about non – violent responses to conflict, social and economic justice, gender equity and their self-respect and human security as well.
Despite efforts of various human rights and women’s rights organizations, together with international aid agencies, to lobby for the elimination of SGBV, the lackadaisical efforts of the law enforcement agencies where disputes are settled without any charges pressed against the perpetrators, the culture of impunity has fostered. Often, police and local people try to settle the domestic dispute by pressing the women into accepting their ‘fate’ as the society is still dominated by patriarchy with its own set of strict codes—many of which are in conflict with basic rights for women.
In this context, sensitizing people on women’s rights, documenting cases of SGBV, ensuring victim’s access to justice, and empowering women groups with leadership enhancement is of paramount importance. We strongly believe that time now has come to change attitude and behavior where due to social and gender discrimination; women have perceived sexual and physical violence as their fate.
The need of the hour is to sensitize women groups in the communities and increase access to support measures, including access to services such as shelters and legal, medical and psychological support. There is a need of provision of mechanisms to address lack of information to assess the measures taken to address violence against women and to evaluate their impact. It is equally important to make the duty bearers accountable and enhance access to rights and entitlements for marginalized women. We are establishing best practices for engaging men in the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence, and we have contributed to formative research, program development, and campaigns that promote nonviolent attitudes and behaviors related to gender. AIM-Nepal seeks to shift the existing paradigm by addressing primary prevention and response to survivors of gender based violence at community level. It aims to create sustainable change in the way service providers respond to and protect victims of domestic violence.
