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Melissa Upreti

'Half of all pregnant women who die in Nepal lose their lives through illegal abortions. Some resort to inserting sharp objects in an attempt to end their pregnancy,' says lawyer Melissa Upreti, 35, who has been campaigning for the past decade to free women jailed under Nepal’s controversial anti-abortion law.

The deeply religious Hindu society had, until September 2002, seen abortion as a crime punishable with a life sentence. Even women who’d suffered the agony of a miscarriage or still-birth were viewed with suspicion. Many were arrested while recovering in hospital.

Melissa, who is half-Nepalese, half-Indian, graduated from law school at 25 and settled in Kathmandu. It was here, while providing counselling and legal aid, that she saw the devastation caused by the anti-abortion law.

'Ninety per cent of the women I visited in jail had lost their child through miscarriage,' says Melissa. 'Often a neighbour had reported them to police and they ended up in a cold, dank cell with little hope of appeal.'

Melissa collected testimonies from women who’d been jailed for abortion, and then publicised their accounts in academic journals. In 1999, she moved to the Centre of Reproductive Rights in New York and became the legal advisor for Asia. Visiting Nepal regularly, Melissa used her international clout to drive the campaign.

Finally, in 2002, Nepal legalised abortion within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and 18 weeks in cases where a woman’s health was endangered, but it took another two years for most of the jailed women to be released. Two remain incarcerated – and Melissa is petitioning to free them. In March 2004 the first legal termination took place.

'Reducing the stigma of abortion isn’t easy,' says Melissa. 'Many of the women were shunned by their villages and lost precious years with their family while in prison. Those years can never be replaced.'

For more information or to make a donation to the Centre of Reproductive Rights visit www.reproductiverights.org.

Thursday 26 January 2006


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