KATHMANDU: The second National Conference of Women Judges-2081 BS concluded here today, issuing a 12-point pledge letter.

The pledge letter centers on creating a favorable work environment that meets the conditions and needs of women judges, court staffers, and service seekers.

The letter emphasizes maintaining gender sensitivity in the workplace, taking special precautions, and adopting appropriate measures to prevent sexual violence and harassment, establishing childcare centers and lactation rooms in the workplace, and creating opportunities to spur the overall development of women.

Furthermore, the letter stresses the importance of establishing a mechanism for immediately hearing complaints of sexual harassment in the workplace and formulating policies against sexual harassment and offenses.

The letter also calls for revising the court’s regulations and taking initiatives to establish a women’s committee in courts at all three levels of government. The letter pledges to frame necessary policies, strategies, and programs for capacity enhancement and leadership development of women judges, women officers, and staff working in judicial agencies and courts at all three levels, considering their diversity.

Efforts would be coordinated, and arrangements would be made to create equal opportunities for women judges for higher education, training, participation in national and international conferences, and exposure visits for experience exchange, the letter points out.

The letter commits to taking initiatives to make court structures and infrastructures women-friendly, arranging safe housing facilities for women judges and female staff, ensuring security management, and creating an enabling environment that allows for the placement and transfer of women judges and staff discharging their duties in various geographical conditions and various responsibilities, thereby enabling women to gain diverse experiences.

“Collaboration will be carried out with relevant agencies to create an environment wherein women judges and staff could deliver with high morale,” reads the pledge letter. The letter draws attention towards devising a collective mechanism through information technology for effective record-keeping of the Supreme Court’s interpretations, landmark decisions and orders, principles, and legal perspectives on the issues concerning women’s rights, equality, and gender justice, as well as updating the relevant officials and stakeholders on these landmark orders and verdicts.

The two-day gathering of 50 women judges and 10 former women judges also highlighted the importance of creating a national alliance of women judges to forge unity among themselves for their professional development.

The Alliance would also serve as a platform for them to voice their views, enhance advocacy for their rights, exchange experiences, and foster friendship. Moreover, the experiences, opportunities, and challenges faced by women judges, both serving and retired, would be documented and archived, especially of those experiencing such upon starting their service or while being promoted to higher positions.

The letter includes a commitment to taking initiatives to implement international conventions on women’s rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the principles embedded in the ‘Bangalore Principle.’

The participants of the conference reaffirmed their commitment to ensuring gender equality by the spirit and provisions in the Constitution of Nepal, the country’s legal framework, and international conventions on human and women’s rights.

Noting the important role of women’s meaningful participation in upholding the rule of law and social transformation, they pledged to make active efforts towards this end in the pledge letter.