How to get help with domestic violence in Nepal

Get to somewhere safe first. A neighbour's house, a relative's, a public place, a police station. Everything else in this guide assumes you are not currently being attacked, and none of it matters more than getting out of the room.

Call 100, or go to the nearest police station. Nepal Police publishes emergency contact numbers and a facility for finding the offices nearest you, and police stations are open at hours when nothing else is. If you cannot speak freely on the phone, going in person is safer than a call that is overheard.

Ask for the women and children service centre if there is one at that station or district. Nepal Police operates dedicated units for offences against women and children precisely because the general counter is not the right environment for these disclosures, and staff at those units deal with this category of case routinely.

Get medical attention and make sure it is documented, even for injuries that seem minor. A hospital or health post record made on the day, describing what was found and when, is the single most valuable piece of evidence in any later process — criminal, civil or in a custody dispute. Tell the health worker how the injuries happened and ask that it be recorded.

If children are present and at risk, say so explicitly. Their protection is a separate consideration from yours and the response may differ.

Take documents with you if you can do so safely — citizenship certificate, marriage certificate, children's birth certificates, bank documents, phone. If you cannot, do not go back for them. They can be replaced; a return to the house cannot be undone.

Tell someone. A relative, a neighbour, a colleague, a friend, the ward office. Isolation is what makes the situation durable, and one person outside the household who knows what is happening changes what is possible next week.

Nepal Police investigates offences and can act immediately. It is the route for anything involving physical violence, threats, or an immediate risk, and its women and children service centres exist for this category of case. The police can also register a complaint that creates a formal record even where nobody is arrested.

The National Women Commission is a constitutional body with a dedicated complaints and case management branch. It receives complaints, pursues cases, and publishes its scope, its citizen charter and the services it provides. It is a genuinely different instrument from the police: slower, but able to take up matters institutionally and to pursue them where an individual would struggle alone.

The Ministry of Women, Children, Gender and Sexual Minorities and Social Security sets policy and publishes the procedures under which prevention work is organised, including the procedure for forming and operating gender violence prevention coordinating committees and a strategy on men's participation in prevention.

Local government matters more than people expect. Ward offices and municipalities sit inside the coordinating structure, hold local records, administer social security allowances that may be the only independent income available, and are often the fastest route to practical help in a district a long way from Kathmandu.

The courts handle protection orders, divorce, maintenance, property and custody. These are lawyer-assisted processes rather than things you file at a counter, and they run on their own timetable independent of any criminal matter.

The National Human Rights Commission receives complaints about human rights violations, including where a state authority has failed to act. If a police station refuses to register a complaint about domestic violence, that refusal is itself something that can be raised.

Non-governmental organisations provide much of the shelter, counselling and legal aid capacity, and in many districts they are the practical bridge between a decision to leave and the ability to do it. Ask the women and children service centre or the ward office what exists locally, because provision varies enormously by district.

Documentation is what converts an account into a case, and the time to create it is while things are happening rather than months later when a lawyer asks what evidence exists.

Get every injury seen and recorded, every time, even when you do not intend to report. A sequence of dated medical records showing repeated injuries over two years is evidence of a pattern in a way that one record is not, and a pattern is what changes outcomes in custody, protection and criminal matters.

Keep a dated written note of incidents: what happened, when, where, who was present, what was said. Keep it somewhere the other person cannot find it — with a relative, in a locked email account they do not know about, at a workplace. A notebook in the house is not a safe place.

Preserve threatening messages, call logs and voice recordings rather than deleting them. Screenshots should include the sender's identity and the timestamp. Digital evidence is often the clearest evidence available, and it is routinely deleted in the moment because it is upsetting to look at.

Photograph injuries and damage, with the date visible where possible, and store the photographs somewhere outside the house.

Secure copies of documents: citizenship certificate, marriage certificate, children's birth certificates, land and property papers, bank passbooks, salary records. Photograph everything and store the images remotely. Withholding documents is itself a form of control and it is a common one.

Open a bank account in your own name if you can do so without being detected, and put whatever you can into it. Independent access to money is what makes every other option real, and it is the thing most often absent when somebody needs to leave quickly.

Children in a violent household are affected whether or not they are struck. Witnessing violence is recognised as harm, and it is a legitimate reason to seek help even where nobody has laid a hand on a child.

Nepal Police's women and children service centres cover offences against children, and child protection concerns should be raised explicitly rather than folded into a description of a marital dispute. The response mechanisms are different.

Custody and maintenance are court matters and are decided separately from any criminal process. A criminal complaint does not settle who the children live with, and a custody arrangement does not resolve a criminal matter. Both may need to run, and they run on different timetables.

Keep children's documents accessible: birth certificates, school records, vaccination records, and any medical records of their own. These come up repeatedly in custody and school admission and are hard to reconstruct in a hurry.

Schools are an underused resource. A class teacher who knows a child's home situation can notice deterioration, keep records and provide continuity, and children in crisis benefit disproportionately from one adult outside the family who is paying attention.

Be careful about what children are asked to witness or say. Involving a child as a witness in a dispute between parents carries real costs for the child, and the decision to do it should be taken with legal advice rather than in anger.

The Ministry of Women, Children, Gender and Sexual Minorities and Social Security holds responsibility for children as well as women, and publishes national child policy implementation plans alongside its gender violence work.

Ask what shelter exists locally before you need it. Provision is uneven across Nepal, and the honest answer in many districts is that shelter is provided by non-governmental organisations rather than by the state. The women and children service centre and the ward office will know what is available in that district.

Independent income is the constraint that decides most cases. Where a woman qualifies for a social security allowance category — single woman, disability, senior citizen — registering for it is worth doing, because it is money that arrives in her own name and does not depend on anyone's goodwill. That registration happens at the ward office.

Legal help exists but has to be sought. The courts handle protection, maintenance, divorce and property, and these are not processes to attempt unrepresented. Ask the National Women Commission, the women and children service centre or a local organisation what legal aid is available in the district rather than assuming there is none.

Property and inheritance rights are their own subject and are frequently the real battleground. Nepali law provides for a wife's share in property, but exercising it requires documents and representation, and families holding the documents know this. Copying land and property papers early is directly relevant.

Where the husband is working abroad, additional considerations apply: remittance may stop as soon as a complaint is made, foreign employment records may be relevant evidence, and communication is intermittent. Raise this specifically with whoever is advising you, because the practical dynamics differ from a domestic case.

Finally, understand that the process is slow and that this is not a sign it is failing. Institutional routes in Nepal move at institutional speed. The person who has documented, registered, made contact with a body and secured some independent money is in a fundamentally stronger position than the person who has done none of those things, whatever stage the formal process has reached.