Discrimination against women and girls is widespread in Nepal; the preference of giving birth to a son rather than a daughter is deeply embedded in tradition, culture and religion.
In recent years, prenatal sex determination and sex selective abortion (SSA) has emerged as a serious gender and reproductive rights issue. However issues concerning girl infant discrimination and their rights to survival have received little or no attention in policies and plans. Although Nepalese abortion law criminalizes sex-selective abortion, it has not prevented sex-selective abortions from occurring, but rather create a climate where women resort to unsafe and clandestine abortions.
For this reason ICDI and its partners are implementing the 3-year project “Breaking the Barriers: Safeguarding the Rights of Girl Infants”.
Description
We are working towards decreasing the worst forms of discrimination against girl infants.
Several activities are being implemented, such as: the development of advocacy packages; the formation of CSO networks; raising awareness through a radio programme; and organizing different training and workshop on girls’ rights and men engagement.
Child Helpline Centers and local social and religious leaders are being mobilised to promote our objective.
The project will be implemented in Kathmandu and 6 other districts: Chitwan, Rupandehi, Kanchanpur, Bhaktapur, Kaski and Surkhet.
This project is a collaboration between lead organization Child Workers In Nepal (CWIN), World Vision Advocacy Forum (WVAF) and Centre for Research on Environment Health and Population Activities (CREHPA) as national partners and International Child Development Initiatives (ICDI) as the international partner.
ICDI’s role is to train and coach partners in the use of the Girls Quat tool (see our Tools page) and give advice on programme implementation.
