Sharmila Thapa is a Nepali nurse and activist working for single mothers and against domestic violence.
Thapa is an activist who speaks out against gender based violence, [1] something she experienced herself prior to her divorce. [2]
She was awarded the N-Peace Awards by UNDP in 2015. [3] She also founded Samida Women Development Forum, an organization working for single mothers. [3] The forum has provided scholarships for 86 children of single mothers from various part of Nepal.
She is a nurse. [4]
Thapa herself is a single mother of a son and an adopted daughter. [3] [7]
Sunila Abeysekera was a Sri Lankan human rights campaigner. She worked on women's rights in Sri Lanka and in the South Asia region for decades as an activist and scholar. Quitting a career as a singer, Abeysekera briefly joined the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and then founded the Women and Media Collective in 1984. As head of the INFORM Human Rights Documentation Centre, she monitored human rights violations by all parties in the civil war. She received the United Nations Human Rights Award in 1999 and the Didi Nirmala Deshpande South Asian Peace and Justice Award in 2013.
In 2022, Freedom House rated Nepal’s human rights at 57 out 100, determining the country's status in terms of fundamental freedoms as "partly free".
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) rights in Nepal have expanded in the 21st century, though much of Nepal's advancements on LGBT rights have come from the judiciary and not the legislature. Same-sex sexual acts have been legal in Nepal since 2007 after a ruling by the Supreme Court of Nepal.
Irom Chanu Sharmila, also known as the "Iron Lady of Manipur" or "Mengoubi" is an Indian civil rights activist, political activist, and poet from the Indian state of Manipur, which is located on the north-eastern side of India. In November 2000, she began a hunger strike for abolishing the Armed Forces Act, 1958. After 16 years, she ended her fast in 2016, after being nasally force-fed for over 500 weeks in custody. Therefore, she has been viewed as the world's longest hunger striker. Amnesty International has declared her as a prisoner of conscience.
The East Timorese people mixed racially with Melanesian and Malay genetically. Most of the East Timorese population are Roman Catholic.
Lily Thapa is social worker, lecturer, writer and founder of Women for Human Rights, an organization that fights for Nepalese widows' rights.
Jumla: A Nurse's Story is a 2013 Nepali war memoir by Radha Paudel. Paudel worked as health worker written during the Maoist insurgency in Jumla district in mid-western region of Nepal. It was published on May 23, 2013, by Nepa~laya publication. It won the Madan Puraskar which is the most recognized literary award in Nepal.
Radha Paudel is a Nepalese nurse, activist and writer. She won the Madan Puraskar for her memoir Khalangama Hamala. She has actively worked for raising awareness related to various women related issues.
May Sabai Phyu is a Kachin activist from Burma. She is active in promoting human rights, freedom of expression, peace, justice for Myanmar's ethnic minorities, anti-violence in Kachin State, and lately in combating violence against women and promoting gender equality issues.
Tabassum Adnan is a Pakistani women's rights activist from the Swat Valley. She won the U.S. State Department's 2015 International Women of Courage Award for her efforts in seeking justice for Pakistani women.
Sara Hossain is a Bangladeshi lawyer. She is a barrister in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. She is the honorary executive director of the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), a major legal aid provider. She has been at the forefront of advocating for women's rights in Bangladeshi courts and played a key role in drafting legal reforms to protect women. She was the plaintiff's lawyer in the landmark case of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association (BNWLW) v. Bangladesh, in which the Supreme Court supported the judicial practice of referring to international human rights law in the absence of domestic legislation. She is known for her role in challenging fatwa violence when a fatwa is issued to mete out punishment to women and girls. She co-edited 'Honour': Crimes, Paradigms and Violence Against Women with Lynn Welchman.
Mohna Ansari is a member of National Human Rights Commission of Nepal. She was appointed to this position in October 2014. She is a well-known rights activist, and Nepal's only female attorney from the Muslim community. She worked as a commissioner at the National Women Commission (NWC) of Nepal between 2010 and 2014. She then worked as the Senior Advisor of IDEA International.
In 2015, Nepal introduced constitutional recognition for "gender and sexual minorities". Despite this, the rights situation of intersex people in Nepal is unclear. Local activists have identified human rights violations, including significant gaps in protection of rights to physical integrity and bodily autonomy, and protection from discrimination. A first national meeting of intersex people look place in early 2016,Organised by First openly Intersex Rights Activist Esan Regmi in Nepal. with support from the UNDP.
Tejshree Thapa was a Nepalese human rights lawyer. She was recognized for her role in investigating and documenting human rights violations, including widespread sexual violence and other atrocities committed during the Yugoslav Wars, the Sri Lanka Civil War, and the Nepal Civil War.
Witch-hunts are still occurring in Nepal in the twenty-first century, and the persecution of marginalised individuals of the community, especially women, still persists. Witchcraft is believed to be the exercise of supernatural powers by witches. Although Nepal does not have a recorded history of systematic witch-hunts, belief in the supernatural, magic, and humans capable of exploiting both to do good or harm is pervasive. In many instances, witch-hunts are simply tribal scapegoating measures carried out to serve ulterior motives, such as getting revenge or winning property disputes.
Feminism in Indonesia refers to the long history of discourse for gender equality to bring about positive social change in Indonesia. The issues women in Indonesia currently are facing include gender violence, underage marriages, and lack of representation in the political system. Feminism and the women's right movement began during colonial Indonesia under Dutch rule and were spearheaded by the national heroine Kartini, a Javanese noblewoman who advocated for the education of all women and girls regardless of social status. In the early 19th century, women's rights organizations and movements were allowed to developed under Budi Utomo, the first Indonesian Nationalist organization. Modern day Indonesian feminism include and are influenced by both fundamentalist and progressive Islamic women's organizations.
Filomena Barros Dos Reis is an East Timorese social justice activist and recipient of the N-Peace Award in 2011.
Rotua Valentina Sagala is an Indonesian women's rights activist and activist for law and human rights. In 2013 she won the N-Peace Award.
Hasina Jalal is an advocate for women's rights and democracy in Afghanistan. In 2014, Jalal was elected by public vote to receive the "N-Peace Award" from the UNDP Asia Pacific Regional Office and the UN Secretary General's Special Advisor on the University for Peace. She co-founded and served as the Executive Director of the National Association of Afghanistan Civil Society (NAACS) and the first alliance of South Asian women on Women's Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (SAFA) in Sri Lanka. Jalal served in the Afghan government as a research team lead and policy expert at the Presidential Palace and as a Policy Advisor to Minister and Director of Program Design and Donor Coordination Directorate at the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum of the Government of Afghanistan.
Rubina Feroze Bhatti is a Pakistani human rights activist, peace activist and leadership consultant. She is a former member on the country's National Commission on the Rights of Child where she represented Punjab province. She is currently serving as an assistant professor at Pakistan Global Institute and a visiting fellow at Stanford University.