Justice for Inisa: Kathmandu’s Gen Z takes up a new battle

Following elections that saw a resounding defeat for traditional parties, Nepal is now reeling from the death of a 16-year-old girl who died as a result of rape. This horrific story brings women’s issues back into the spotlight in a country where women make up just 8% of the newly elected parliament and have little protection in the workplace.

Kathmandu (AsiaNews) - Emotion and anger are spreading across Nepal following the death of Inisa, a 16-year-old student who died from the consequences of a brutal sexual assault, possibly a gang rape.

The media, social networks, and public opinion are exerting strong pressure on investigators to quickly reach definitive conclusions and identify the perpetrator or perpetrators of a crime that is certainly not unique in the country, but which—due to the victim’s young age, the circumstances of the attack, and the lack of medical assistance that might have saved her life—is receiving attention perhaps unprecedented in the country’s history.

Inisa BK was found unconscious in a forested area of the municipality of Birendranagar on the morning of March 7. She was immediately transported to a hospital just three kilometers away, where she was pronounced dead. The autopsy determined that the cause of death was severe hemorrhage due to genital lacerations consistent with sexual assault.

The young woman had left home around 6 a.m., telling her mother she was going to a class and would be back soon. A few hours later, her mother—worried by her delay and having called her daughter to no avail—received an anonymous phone call reporting the young woman’s presence in the forested area where she was found.

Initial investigations led to the arrest of four minors, one of whom had been in a relationship with the victim for some time; surveillance footage showed him with Inisa that morning shortly after she left home.

The boy described a consensual encounter that allegedly turned violent, causing her to bleed, and said he had called his peers for help; he claimed they then fled out of fear of consequences, perhaps thereby condemning the student to death. This version, however, has raised significant doubts, starting with the family, who have filed charges against the four boys for manslaughter and gang rape—charges that investigators appear to support.

This is yet another tragedy for the family, which had already lost a son years ago and is also separated by necessity, as the father has been abroad for work for some time after reaching retirement age in the military and is now unable to return due to the flight ban from Dubai.

Inisa’s story comes at a particular time for Nepal, which also explains its national resonance. The Generation Z uprising last September led to the March 5 elections and the entry into politics of many new faces, of both genders.

The country was also led toward the vote by a woman, Sushila Karki, a former chief justice of the Supreme Court; however, only slightly more than 10% of the candidates were women, and only 8% of those elected are female. Before the vote, calls for greater consistency and commitment from the political class to resolve the country’s problems were joined by demands for greater recognition of the role of women, who account for only 27% of government employees; far fewer are employed in other sectors of formal work, while they dominate the informal sector.

Calls for greater protection of women were also made regarding the significant participation of women in labor migration. Particular attention was focused on agreements that force Nepali migrant women in Arab countries—often employed in domestic work or home care—to place themselves entirely in the hands of employers who confiscate their passports, forcing them to accept any conditions to avoid deportation.