Kathmandu (Pahichan) August 29 – Former Member of Constituent Assembly (CA) Sunil Babu Pant has expressed objection over the statement provided by Radheshyam Adhikari, a member of National Assembly (NA), concerning the rights of LGBTI.

Speaking in the NA, Adhikari said that they were unable to mention the rights of same-sex marriage in civil and criminal codes which came into effect from August 17.

“The statement provided by Adhikari clearly reflects the prejudice against the LGBTI community.  He is against providing equal rights to sexual and gender minority since the frist Constituent Assembly,” Pant said.

Pant said when Adhikari was serving as a member of Sub-committee of Political Consensus Committee of Constituent Assembly, he intentionally deleted the provisions of sexual and gender minority from the definition of ‘minority and marginalized communities’ from the text of draft text drafted by ‘minority rights committee’ of the Assembly then.

The prejudice of Adhikari to this community still remains unchanged, said Pant. Pant said Adhikari always tried to prevent the provisions related to this community in the constitution drafting process.  Setopati online had published Adhikari’s interview saying LGBTI community is a small community in Nepal.

“This community may be small but you cannot discriminate to this community. How can you deny rights to this community instead of providing protections and rights?” Pant questioned.  He requested Adhikari not to provide such irresponsible statement.

Pant has further argued that as constitution has already provided rights to this community, laws cannot discriminate to this community by giving ridiculous logic that ‘social order will get messed up if LGBTI rights are granted’. “Same meaningless debates surfaced when there were debates about providing citizenship to this community. Now, there is ill-logic surfaced again when it comes to introduce same-sex marriage law too,” he said.

He said members of this community have already received citizenship but it has not affected the social structure or order. He said members of this community are still compelled to forced heterosexual marriage. He said the prejudice of Adhikari will boost the unjust marriages which are happening against LGBTI people’s will.

He said there are several negative effects faced by both the sides of forced heterosexual marriage in society. Pant also gave the international experiences where same-sex marriage has been legalized and those countries continue prospering. Earlier, Ministry of Women and Children assured to introduce separate-same sex law for this community but ministry has not walk the talk. Parliament points the finger to Ministry and Ministry to the parliament. “Government agencies are passing the buck to each other which clearly shows that they are avoiding the responsibility,” said Pant.