A report titled 'Civil Legal Issues related to the Families of the Missing in Nepal' launched by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) elaborated a number of areas, such as access to social benefits and pensions, inheritance and property issues, remarriage, as the most pressing unresolved administrative matters.The study conducted by Senior Advocate Satish Krishna Kharel raised the legal issues related to the families and suggested for possible changes to administrative procedures and existing laws.
The report looks particularly into the possibilities of introducing a declaration of absence, as a legal status for missing persons, enabling them to exercise their legal rights, without obliging them to accept their relative's presumed death.
"Legal and administrative obstacles are a silent and often non-adverted issues that expands the already long list of families' problems," said Alfredo Mallet, deputy head of ICRC Delegation in Nepal.
The ICRC had registered as many as 3793 individuals as missing during Nepal's 10 year armed conflict between 1996 and 2006, of which, 1344 are still unaccounted for.
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