Top court orders relief for conflict-era victims of torture and sexual violence

17 years since Peace Accord, torture victims lack adequate means to seek justice and hold perpetrators to account.

The Supreme Court has directed the government to include the victims of torture and sexual violence from the decade-long Maoist insurgency in its interim relief programme. Passing verdicts in two different writ petitions that challenged the ‘discriminatory provisions’ in the working procedure for relief distribution, a division of justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Hari Prasad Phuyal on Monday concluded that the victims of the insurgency-era torture and sexual violence should not be excluded from the relief package.