27 July 2007

From the very beginning of the human civilization women have been playing very important role in the progress and transformation of society in different ways. They always played equal role as male. But because of our Patriarchal social structure and our unjust social, cultural, religious and economical practices women are lacking behind socially.  They are being discriminated by state, society and even by family in different ways. Women are compelled to face different kinds of violence globally because of unjust and discriminatory social structures. Different statistic derived from the researches carried out globally shows that about 60 % women in the developing countries have become the victims of domestic violence.  This figure might be more than this in south Asian countries.

People in the south Asia region have strong faith in religion and they are highly devoted to their spiritual practices. It is fact that no religion has room for violence against women and every religion respects to the rights of women. Therefore the united efforts of different faith based   organizations and religious communities can be very effective to eradicate violence against women from our society. A priest's sermon can be an important tool for reducing the violence against women if they are provided with some sort of training and materials addressing violence against women.  With this fact in view and with the initiative of   UNIFEM, United Nations Development Fund for Women,   and STEP-Nepal, a NGO working in Nepal for the rights of women, Different major religious communities in Nepal are having meetings to form a Network of religious communities in Nepal to address violence against women. Series of meetings and workshops were held to conceptualize the idea and to give it physical form. From the very beginning of the emergence of this concept NCCN has been involved in this process by participating in the meetings and workshop as the representative body of Christian community in Nepal. As the continuation of this process a workshop of all major religious communities in Nepal, held on 26 July decided to form the National Network of Interfaith Religious Leaders to Address Violence against Women. NCCN has been one of the members of this network and NCCN's representative will be in the executive committee of this Network. It is a good initiative that different religious communities in Nepal have come together to address the national issue of violence against women.  We as the representative body of Christians in Nepal express our strong commitment to promote the work of this inter-religious networking and would like to request all our prayer partners, members and co-workers to keep the issue of Violence against Women in their regular prayers. ......... NCCN News 27 July 2007