Gender-based Violence in Nepal
In Nepal, gender-based violence (GBV) remains one of the country’s biggest challenges, where 1 in 4 women and girls will experience some form of gender-based violence in their lifetime. Behind each statistic is a woman or girl navigating stigma, isolation, and barriers to support – experiences that are amplified during emergencies.
Katya is deployed as the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Sub-Cluster Coordinator to UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Nepal through Australia Assists, where she works alongside the Ministry of Women and Children to ensure there is a holistic, coordinated approach to responding to GBV at both policy and operational levels.
The Invisibility of Child Marriage
The most prominent form of GBV within Nepal is intimate partner violence, which reflects a global trend. This is also intimately linked to child marriage, an issue that remains persistent in Nepal.
‘The latest statistics said around 47% of women were married before the age of 18, so it’s quite young,’ said Katya. ‘In Nepal, the legal age of marriage is 20 years old, so we know for a fact that this is happening a lot younger.’
When child marriage occurs, Katya notes that it can make a woman or girl more vulnerable to intimate partner violence and other forms of gender-based violence. ‘If a young girl, for example, marries into a family, she leaves her home, her family, her community and the opportunities that once surrounded her,’ said Katya. ‘Her vulnerabilities just became so much higher and on top of that, she loses access to education, psychosocial support, or health services. She becomes invisible; and we see the impact of that during emergencies.’
For many girls, this invisibility means that when a disaster strikes, their ability to access support networks or services becomes severely limited. “In emergencies, many of these young girls and women are trying to access support,” explained Katya. ‘But cash assistance and social protection are often issued to the household head and require identification. If a girl was married very young, she may not have her own documents. So, the support goes to her husband. If he is abroad for labor migration, she has to wait. And if she is experiencing violence and he refuses to help her, she can be left with nothing.’
‘If a young girl, for example, marries into a family, she leaves her home, her family, her community and the opportunities that once surrounded her.
Putting Survivors First
At the heart of Katya’s approach is her belief that “how” you do the work matters as much as “what” you do. ‘I think for me, the trauma informed approach is not what you’re doing. It’s about how you do everything,’ said Katya.
This belief is embodied within Katya’s work, where she strongly advocates embedding compassion, empathy and dignity into every level of the response. ‘When we’re designing programs and interventions, we have to put ourselves in the shoes of a survivor walking through these services from their perspective, what they might need and how they might feel in that moment,’ said Katya. ‘It’s about making every decision with empathy and care… and we need to embody this, not as professionals and project managers, but as people first, if we want to do this job effectively.’
Strengthening Frontline Skills
Katya’s passion for ensuring trauma-informed approaches has helped shape a supportive and empathetic culture. She has facilitated and delivered trainings to more than 200 caseworkers, community focal points and government workers – most of whom are the first touchpoint for survivors.
These trainings have helped provide a framework on trauma-informed services for survivors of GBV, while strengthening their expertise on understanding referral pathways, disclosures, and best practice in case management.
‘The more frontline workers know about these things, the better they can help a survivor make informed, dignified, autonomous choices and then access services, if they feel that’s the best option for them,’ said Katya.
Katya notes that while people may have good intentions, a lack of training can lead to harmful responses — asking the wrong questions, pushing for details too soon, or reacting in ways that shut survivors down. ‘A lot of times when that happens, survivors suffer alone. Even when they come to someone for help, that person just doesn’t know how to.’
By strengthening their knowledge, skills and confidence with practical tools and training, Katya has increased Nepal’s frontline workers to be able to respond to GBV with respect, dignity, and empathy.
Building National Standards for GBV Response
A major milestone in strengthening protection of survivors of GBV is Katya’s efforts in the development of Nepal’s national standards for GBV case management.
‘In Nepal, there’s not yet a set guideline on what it means to provide case management services,’ noted Katya. ‘We do have a six-step standard that was created by the global Gender-Based Violence Management Information System (GBVIMS), but in a lot of countries, most of the time, they don’t have a national standard.’
Katya supported this effort, alongside UNFPA colleagues from Nepal and Pakistan, across a five-day residential training course for UNFPA’s implementing partners. ‘We got to dive deeper into topics, like child marriage and survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse,’ recalled Katya. ‘But also, how to supervise caseworkers and how to create a supporting environment so they’re not burning out and can meet the technical quality.’
‘It’s a really important step that we should all be working towards, and we have a pool of trainers who can now do this,’ said Katya. ‘Now it’s up to the Nepali people who are trained in this to carry it forward and in an even better way, because they’ll be able to contextualise this through their personal experiences working with survivors in Nepal – that’s so much better than I can ever write or guide them.’
‘Now it’s up to the Nepali people who are trained in this to carry it forward and in an even better way, because they’ll be able to contextualise this through their personal experiences working with survivors in Nepal.'
Making Referral Pathways Work in Real Time
Building on this work, Katya focused on improving access to real-time referral pathway information so services could respond faster and more effectively. She worked closely with UNICEF to develop Nepal’s first real-time, interactive GBV and Child Protection referral pathway, giving frontline responders immediate visibility of available services that had previously been difficult to navigate
In remote areas in Nepal, information about referral pathways and service providers can take months to reach women and girls when we rely on printed service directories. Sometimes, by the time it reaches communities in need, the information is outdated. But with this initiative, this means faster access to life-saving care and less obstacles for survivors.
‘We’re updating the referral pathways to the ward [local] level and thinking about how we ensure linkages to all of the related care, not just GBV but also for health, child protection legal services and more,’ said Katya.
Lasting Survivor-Centered Impact
The nature of humanitarian work is complex, slow, and often unpredictable. At times, Katya and her colleagues sometimes question their efforts, and the impact they’re leaving behind: ‘Sometimes, we sit at a computer desk and ask ourselves, “what are we actually trying to achieve?” We all want to leave a long-lasting impact.’
For Katya, her impact is not measured by visibility, but by every moment a survivor is met with compassion, is supported safely, and is connected to care.
‘I just want frontline workers to use the tools developed and the skills they learned in training and if it’s helping people on the ground link survivors to the support they need, then I’ll be happy.’
In Nepal, these strengthened systems, and the people leading them, will continue to protect women and girls in the future.
Disclaimer: The information and views published here are the individual’s own and do not necessarily represent the partner organisation, Australia Assists or the Australian Government’s views, positions or opinions.