Works in women and children issues

Background works of Dr. Govind Thapa in the field of women and children

Women and Child Service Centre: Women and children suffer from various forms of violence and crimes in our society. His contribution to control these crimes actually started after the workshop on the investigations of crimes against women and children in 1995. The participants of the workshop criticized police for being ignorant, insensitive and inefficient to investigate violence and crimes against women and children. Since that moment, with a view that a senior police officer must get concerned, he started getting involved in the activities launched by some NGOs to fight violence and crimes against women and children. Within few months, on 16 Feb 1996, Police Women Cells[now Women and Children services Centres(WCSC)] were established in police headquarters and in four districts; Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Kaski, and Morang. These WCSCs started working with limited capacity and resources. Soon these became popular amongst poor victims. Local NGOs came in with more information of violence and crimes. The reporting coverage of violence and crimes against women and children increased. These WCSCs became more active and busy dealing with these cases. Soon these started collaborating with local NGOs. They also established their links with local communities through Community Police Centers.

UNICEF: Having felt the importance, effectiveness and potentialities of these WCSCs, Nepal police signed a MOU with UNICEF. He contributed later as the project coordinator during 1999-2000. This joint initiative helped police educate its officials on the various issues of human rights--especially women and children’s rights. At present, there are two separate desks for human trafficking and child sexual offences in the police headquarters. There are offices of WCSCs in more than fifty districts.

DFID: The British Government also offered its help by signing another MOU for the five-year long UK-DFID/Nepal police project- now coined as Nepal Police Development Project. He worked as the project manager during the years 1999-2001. This project constructed the first building for Women and Children Services Center of Lalitpur district. Later on, 12 more such buildings were built in twelve districts during 2000-2001.

ADB: Later on he also got involved with the ADB in conducting studies and developing strategies to contribute Nepal police fight human trafficking since past few years. The ADB suspended the project at that time due to security problems. It is again developing plan for establishing women and children services centers in 11 more districts of mid west and far west region of Nepal.

He has also played key roles to involve American Embassy, The Daywalka Foundation, and Planet Enfant to support training activities for police.

HUGOU: He has also been contributing in the efforts to improve the police culture in Nepal. He contributed as a senior consultant for Human Rights and Good Governance Advisory Unit (HUGOU) for a research project on international pattern between people from selected enforcement unit and cross section of the public with particular focus on disadvantaged group in 2001.

CVICT: In 2000, he also worked as a part time consultant to the Center for Victims of Torture (CVICT) for a project on strengthening prison and penal reform. The report is published and can be accessed to in http://www.esp-nepal.com. Based upon that report the improvement in jail administration project is currently in operation. The preface reads:

This study was a concrete attempt to identify the strengths and weaknesses of Nepal’s penal and prison systems and to seek ways of minimizing the weaknesses and maximizing the strengths. It covered a range of issues: from the historical background, to the hardships suffered by victims of the penal system, to possible solutions to overcome the problems to suit modern day needs. The main outcome of the study is this book, which is divided into six parts. The concluding agenda for change, if taken objectively and sincerely, should bring about a significant transformation in the penal and prison situation in Nepal. A number of people made concrete contributions to this report. The most notable were made by the consultant experts. The expertise of Dr. Anand Mohan Bhattarai, Govind Prasad Thapa, Shambu Ghimire and Vinaya Kumar Kasujoo deserve special mention.

UNOHCHR: He also was a Consultant to High Commissioner, Office of UNOHCHR to prepare Human Rights Training Manual for police in 2000.

PhD Research: He completed Doctoral (PhD) research in 2002 on human trafficking and law enforcement. A summary of the research:

The reporting of the trafficking cases was limited due to several factors. The criminal procedures take several years to complete and there are inefficiencies on part of the law enforcement agencies. The co-ordination and co-operation between the police, prosecutors, judges, physicians, forensic specialists and the jail administration, is utterly lacking.
One of the other findings of this research study has been the large number of prisoners claiming to be innocent. The total population of prisoners in the three jails of Kathmandu valley was 1886 in the year 2000-2001. The number of offenders involved in human trafficking was 259 (13.73%) out of which 44 (16.98%) of those involved in cases of trafficking, were women.
Out of the 145 prisoners interviewed, only 37 (25.51%) confessed their crimes or partial involvement while 108 (74.48%) denied the accusation. Their contentions were that they were framed up for various reasons ranging from revenge, personal enmity, local politics, police torture and pressure. Many of them blamed the police for torture and almost all agencies of law enforcement for corruption. 73 of them were put into jails for more than ten years, 21 were imprisoned for 1-10 years while 51 were remanded to jail for further investigation. Several recommendations were prescribed for the improvement in the law enforcement.

Penal Code Reform: He was one of the members of a high-level national task force headed by the Attorney General to review and reform current criminal penal code of Nepal. The task force has submitted its recommendation to the government.

Trafficking Law Draft: The national law of Nepal on human trafficking was incomplete and faulty. It required amendments. He had the opportunity to chair the team of experts to recommend amendments and draft the new bill. The civil society and the ministry of women and children later approved necessary changes and forwarded it to the ministry of law and justice. He also had the opportunity to attend a workshop of experts in Mumbai to review and recommend substantial amendments in the SAARC Convention on trafficking.

SAATHI: He also worked with SAATHI, a NGO, for study on the psychosocial impacts of violence against women and girls with special focus on rape, incest, and polygamy in 2001. The report can be accessed at http://www.saathi.org.np.

FWDL: His association with Forum for Women Development and Law (FWDL) was aimed at improving the national law against all forms of crimes against women and children. He contributed a chapter for the training manual on human trafficking designed for law enforcement officials.

Author: He has also contributed a chapter on “Rape Survivors: Psychosocial Problems and Investigation in Southern Asia,” for Medical Legal & Social Science Aspects of Child Sexual Exploitation (2 Volumes), published by GW Medical publishing, Missouri, USA, 2005.

LAAC: He is advisor of Legal Aid and Consultancy Centre—a NGO working in the field of women and children.

International Experiences

IOM Project: He has taken a round trip to Dhaka, Jessore and Rajshree of Bangladesh to deliver presentations on the issues of Combating Human Trafficking through community policing strategy in 2004 as IOM’s consultant.

INTERPOL: He has been attending some seminars and workshops organized on the theme of prevention and control of sexual offences. The most recent of them being the 21st and 22nd INTERPOL Specialist Thematic Group Seminar on Sexual Exploitation of Children in Lyon and Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2003 and 2004.

IPES Conference: He has also participated in the 11th International Police Executives Symposium Seminar on Criminal Exploitation of Women and Children in Canada in 2004. He was a moderator in one of the thematic workshops on path breaking strategies in the global fight against sex trafficking held in Washington in 2003.

SAARC Conference on Police Cooperation Matters: He has also raised the importance of establishing SAARCPOL for regional police cooperation in both, 3rd and 4th SAARC conferences on cooperation in police matters held respectively in Kathmandu, Nepal and Islamabad, Pakistan in 2003 and 2004. This mechanism will serve implement Conventions signed in SAARC Conferences.

Research Fellow: Social Inclusion Research Fund (SIRF)/SNV Nepal (Netherlands Development Organization) in 2007-9 for a research on the violence against women and access to justice in three districts—Rupandehi, Nawalparasi, and Kapilvastu. The abstract reads:

The violence against women is important to justice; women having problem to get justice is more so. The access to justice to the victims of rape and sexual assault is limited. For many, the justice system does not exist at all. There are cross cutting issues of social stigma, indictment, social exclusion, traditional and inhospitable justice systems that discourage victims from reporting the violence. Those who endeavor, they experience most indifferent and humiliating behavior of the society and criminal justice system. This study finds that the present dysfunctional criminal justice system is required to be transformed into a more human, responsive, fair, accessible, inexpensive and dynamic service system to an extent that it is replaced by a proper alternative system.

Resident Fellow: of Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study Centre, Italy, 2009. During the stay in Bellagio Study Centre he studied the international attempts to prevent and control family violence.