Scores of rape and sexual violence cases pending in Dhanusha court

Survivors of rape and sexual violence in Dhanusha district are compelled to wait for year on end to get justice from the court of law. Concerned family members and survivors say the District Court, Dhanusha, doesn’t give due priority to their cases despite their repeated pleas. A case in point is the incident in which two sisters, both of the underage, were drugged and raped in Chhireshwarnath Municipality. It took the court nearly four years to hand down its conviction against the perpetrator.

That period between the incident and the sentencing was harrowing for the two girls and their parents. The family was not just burdened by debt while fighting the case, they were also constantly threatened and pressured by the community members not to drop the charges and agree to an out-of-court settlement.

“The situation in the village reached to the point where we could no longer live there,” the girls’ father tells ApEx over the phone. The family moved to Kathmandu to fight the case and start anew. After moving to the Capital city, the girls’ father started working menial jobs to raise his family. Every now and again, he traveled to Dhanusha for the case hearing. “I cannot describe how much I had to go through to bring this culprit, who ruined the lives of my daughters and my family, to justice,” he says. “At one point, I had thought about giving up because the court was too slow to act. My family was saddled with debt. The only thing that kept him going was my two little daughters.” The case was presented for hearing 31 times before the perpetrator was sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay Rs 500,000 in compensation. There are scores of cases concerning rape and sexual violence awaiting hearing in Dhanusha. The court records show 92 cases, some of them from three years back, are still under judicial consideration. Bikash Basnet, the district court registrar, says the process of justice delivery has slowed down, as the judges are overwhelmed by cases. “One judge has to decide on over 1,100 cases. Still, we try to prioritize serious cases like rape and sexual violence against girls and women,” says Basnet. He claims that the court has formed a separate department to look into and prioritize pending cases. “We will soon start fast-tracking the cases based on their priority,” he adds. Data at the Madhes Province Police shows 734 rape cases and 217 cases of molestation and sexual violence and were reported in eight districts of the province in the past three years. Advocate Rekha Jha believes the situation of sexual crime in Dhanusha and other districts in Madhes province is far worse than what the records show. “We know and we have seen how when there is a rape incident, there are efforts to hush-up the case, how community members and neighbors try to pressure the victim to keep silence,” says Jha. “This practice is still common, particularly when the perpetrators are related or know the victims.” She adds the stigma surrounding rape and sexual assault encourages the culture of keeping the crime a secret, or negotiating out-of-court settlement. “Survivors of rape and sexual assaults rarely go to the authorities themselves,” she says. “And when they do, our justice system delays the hearing, driving them and their families to mental and financial distress.”