23 May, 2014
A delegation of Amnesty International Nepal delivered over 125,000 petitions, urging the Nepal Government to recognise uterine prolapse as a human rights issue and to commit to tackling gender discrimination in order to reduce its prevalence, to Chief Secretary Leelamani Poudyal. The petitions were addressed to the Prime Minister Sushil Koirala.
Upon receiving the petitions, Chief Secretary Poudyal said the government is committed to protecting human rights: “The government is planning to develop a Human Rights Action Plan in July this year in which it will try to include what Amnesty International is calling for through the petitions (i.e. recognize Uterine Prolapse as human rights issue) in it”.
Chairperson of AI Nepal Shambhu Thakur handed over the petitions collected from different parts of Nepal and over two dozen countries. Along with the launch of Amnesty International’s research report in February this year, the organisation ran a global action to collect signatures on the petition calling Nepal government to publicly recognise Uterine Prolapse as human rights issue.
AI Nepal’s Director made a briefing about Amnesty International’s work around link between Gender Discrimination and Uterine Plolapse.
The delegation comprised of Lauren Treand Armistead from the International Secretariat of AI, Vice-chairperson Surya Bahadur Adhikari, Member of National Executive Committee Kumar Ghimire and others.