By Dr. Bishnu Bashyal & Sonika Shrestha
Originally published in NALSAR Law Review, Volume 10, Number 1, 2025
Key Words: Domestic Violence, Gender Inequality, Patriarchy, Human Rights, Abuse, Legal Framework
Across the world, societies face many serious problems that deeply affect people’s lives and opportunities. Among these, domestic violence stands out as a serious and damaging issue — a glaring violation of human rights that affects people of all backgrounds. It is a pattern of abusive behavior used by one partner to control another, and it can take many forms, including physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, and economic abuse.
In Nepal, domestic violence remains widespread due to cultural, religious, and economic factors that reinforce male dominance. Despite laws like the Domestic Violence (Offence and Punishment) Act, 2009 and constitutional rights ensuring equality and protection, many victims still struggle to get help. Police data shows that over half of the cases involve physical violence and often affect young girls. Addressing this issue requires strong legal enforcement, education, community support, and awareness programs to challenge harmful norms, improve access to services, and build a society where everyone can live with dignity.
1. Conceptual Background
Many issues — poverty, inequality, discrimination, and lack of education — continue to limit opportunities for millions of people, restricting their freedom. Conflict and economic crisis make it difficult to build stable communities, creating environments where violence, exploitation, discrimination, and injustice thrive. Understanding how social conditions shape human behavior, and how power is used or misused within families and communities, is essential.
Domestic violence occurs in a domestic setting, typically within a marriage. It is a pattern of abusive behavior used by one partner to gain power and control over another, and can be physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological — encompassing behavior meant to humiliate, isolate, frighten, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, intimidate, or manipulate a partner.
Domestic violence occurs across heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender relationships, regardless of the victim’s age, race, or religious background. It is a pattern of controlling, coercive, threatening, degrading, and violent behavior, including sexual violence, and is most commonly experienced by women and perpetrated by men. It affects communities worldwide, harming physical health, emotional well-being, and the ability to participate fully in society. Victims are overwhelmingly female, and face significant challenges in accessing justice and protection.
Globally, it is estimated that 35% of women have experienced physical or sexual violence. Nepal is no exception — domestic violence remains a pervasive human rights and public health issue here. Nepal has taken steps to address it, working closely with women’s rights organizations, UN agencies, and other partners, and has made legal commitments including the Domestic Violence (Offence and Punishment) Act, 2009. The right to equality, along with the rights of children and women, is enshrined in Nepal’s Constitution of 2015 as a fundamental right.
Cultural, economic, and religious beliefs reinforce male dominance in Nepal, where men typically inherit power and control most property, alongside the responsibility to support parents, wives, and children. Women remain more dependent on men, a dependence reinforced by religious and cultural norms. Poverty, lack of jobs, and alcohol abuse further feed the conditions for violence. According to Nepal Police data, 53% of domestic violence cases involve physical violence and 47% involve mental violence. Of these cases, 67% occur between husband and wife, 63% of victims are girls between 11 and 16 years old, and 38% of perpetrators are between 10 and 25 years old.
Addressing this problem requires a coordinated approach combining legal enforcement, education, and community support — recognizing domestic violence not as a private family matter, but as a violation of human rights that damages individuals, families, and society as a whole.
2. Development of the Laws on Domestic Violence
Domestic violence has not always been considered as serious an offence as violence among strangers. In the early 1500s, beating one’s wife was permitted for “correctional” purposes under old English common law, which set a limitation that a husband could only whip his wife with a implement no bigger than his thumb — the origin of the phrase “rule of thumb.” This practice was also common in ancient Rome during the reign of Romulus, where husbands were permitted to beat their wives with a rod or switch no thicker than their thumb, reflecting a traditional view of the husband as owner of his wife.
After the end of the Punic Wars, women in Rome gained more freedom, including the right to sue their husbands for unjustified beatings — though wife-beating itself was still not considered illegal, only unjustified beating. This freedom, too, was eventually rolled back under a restored patriarchal norm. Around 300 AD, Emperor Constantine burned his wife alive when he considered her “of no use” — illustrating how the situation for women, rather than improving, arguably worsened over time.
It was not until 1871, in the case of Fulgham v. State, that an Alabama court became the first in the United States to revoke a husband’s legal right to beat his wife. This marked an important turning point, although shifting the legal position did little to immediately shift the underlying social and cultural attitudes that normalized domestic abuse.
Development of Domestic Violence Law in Nepal
Nepal’s legal history reflects a similarly gradual evolution. During the Kirat period, rulers governed based on traditional customs, with social and cultural values holding significant weight even in matters of family law. During the Lichchhavi period, legal codes such as the Manavnyayashastra — introduced under Jayasthiti Malla and later King Ram Shah — did not explicitly reference family law issues such as domestic violence.
In the period before 1854, King Ram Shah (King of Gorkha, 1666–1693 B.S.) introduced the sthiti for regulating the country, but again without specific reference to family law. The landmark Muluki Ain, 1854, followed the Mitakshara school of Hindu law but departed from it in key respects — notably, treating women and children as part of a household’s property.
The Muluki Ain, 1854 was eventually replaced by the Muluki Ain, 1963 (2020 B.S.), a significant step forward as a codified law that served as the foundation for later reforms. While it did not incorporate specific provisions addressing domestic violence directly, it did touch on related issues indirectly — including provisions against banishing someone from a household on accusations of witchcraft.
The Interim Constitution of Nepal, 2063 (2007) incorporated various fundamental rights, including the right to freedom (Article 13), which protects personal liberty.
The Domestic Violence (Offence and Punishment) Act, 2066 (2009) marked a turning point as dedicated legislation bringing domestic violence into the public sphere, with clear definitions of what constitutes the offence and a framework for prevention.
The Constitution of Nepal, 2072 (2015) expanded on these protections considerably:
- Article 36 guarantees the right relating to food.
- Article 37 ensures every citizen the right to appropriate housing and protects against unlawful eviction — a provision with direct relevance where domestic violence perpetrators evict victims from shared housing, or where victims and perpetrators are ordered to remain in the same home during interim relief proceedings.
- Article 38 relates specifically to women, guaranteeing the right to equal lineage without discrimination — addressing one significant reason victims may hesitate to report abuse, given concerns about their children’s citizenship status. This article also secures the right to safe motherhood and reproductive health, and the right to choose on matters of family planning — both areas where domestic violence can occur or be exacerbated, including in cases where women are victimized over the sex of a child they bear. It further provides that no woman shall be subjected to physical, mental, sexual, psychological, or other violence or exploitation on any grounds, that such acts are punishable by law, and that victims have the right to compensation. The article also ensures women’s right to proportional participation in state bodies, and their right to special opportunities in education, health, employment, and social security through positive discrimination — provisions that indirectly support conditions for reducing domestic violence.
- Husbands and wives are also ensured equal rights to property and family affairs — a critical protection, since many women remain in abusive relationships for lack of anywhere else to go.
- Article 29 protects every person from exploitation, trafficking, slavery, servitude, or forced labor, with victims entitled to compensation.
- Article 21 guarantees victims’ rights, including the right to information about investigations and proceedings, and the right to justice, social rehabilitation, and compensation.
- Article 25 protects the privacy of domestic violence victims regarding their residence, property, documents, data, and correspondence.
- Article 20(10) allows victims who are not financially capable to claim legal aid.
The Muluki Criminal Code, 2074 (2017) further criminalized discriminatory and disrespectful behavior on the grounds of origin, religion, race, caste, sex, physical state, disability, health status, and marital status. It criminalized bigamy (Section 175), forceful abortion (Section 188(2)), and both marital rape and incest rape (Sections 219(4) and 220). While the Code does not reference “domestic violence” as a distinct category, its provisions clearly relate to and reinforce protections against it. Most recognized forms of domestic violence — assault, acid attacks, and others — are already criminalized under Nepal’s Criminal Code, although minor matters such as simple assault are often treated as civil issues eligible for reconciliation.
3. Conclusion
In Nepal, domestic violence remains deeply entangled with socially constructed gender norms, in which women are more dependent on men and often kept in weaker positions. This is not simply a matter of individual attitudes, but a social system that teaches people that controlling and hurting women is normal — beliefs passed down through generations. As a result, the home, which should be a place of safety, often becomes a site of hitting, insults, and financial control instead.
This problem affects women across all backgrounds, in villages and cities alike. Even with laws promising equality, such as the Domestic Violence (Offence and Punishment) Act, many women still struggle to access help. The acceptance of male power within the family means many cases of abuse remain hidden, with victims often afraid of shame, worried about their children, or scared of further violence if they report the abuse.
Addressing domestic violence in Nepal demands more than legal provisions alone — it requires transforming the patriarchal foundation that sustains inequality and control over women. Laws are essential for punishing abusers and protecting victims, but communities must also be taught about respect and equality. Raising awareness and building strong community support are equally vital: when communities discuss domestic violence openly, victims feel less alone and more supported. Awareness programs in schools, workplaces, and villages, alongside stronger legal enforcement and consistent punishment for perpetrators, are all necessary steps. Only by taking this issue seriously and working together can Nepal build a society where everyone — especially women and children — is treated with dignity, equality, and freedom from fear.