An LGBTQ couple has acquired a marriage certificate in Nepal, officials said yesterday, a first in South Asia and hailed by the pair as a win “for all.”
Transgender woman Maya Gurung and Surendra Pandey obtained a marriage certificate from a local ward in Lamjung district on Wednesday.
“We are very happy and proud. This has finally happened,” Gurung said.
Photo: AFP
The couple held a Hindu marriage ceremony in 2017, and live together with their dog and cat.
“This is a win not just for us but for all couples like us,” she said.
In June, the Nepalese Supreme Court issued an interim order allowing all same-sex and transgender couples to register their marriages, directing the government to establish a separate temporary register until laws are formulated.
Gurung, 41, and Pandey, 27, were the first to apply at the district court, but it refused to register their marriage.
Their appeal was also rejected.
“We then approached the local authorities, who were much more open to listen,” said the couple’s lawyer, Rounik Raj Aryal.
Yubraj Adhikari, chairman of rural Dordi municipality in Lamjung district, said the registration certificate was issued after instructions from the Nepalese Department of National ID and Civil Registration.
“The instructions were based on the Supreme Court’s decision and they submitted all other required documents,” Adhikari said.
Many in the community were waiting for Gurung and Pandey to pave the way and register their marriage.
“It is a win after a decades-long battle for marriage equality. They have made history. It is a milestone day for us to celebrate,” LGBTQ rights activist Sunil Babu Pant said.
Nepal already has some of South Asia’s most progressive laws on homosexuality and transgender rights, with landmark reforms passed in 2007 prohibiting discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.
A third gender category for citizenship documents was introduced in 2013 and Nepal began issuing passports with the “others” category two years later.
However, Nepali law had stayed silent on same-sex or transgender marriages despite a 2015 expert committee recommendation to legalize same-sex marriages following a Supreme Court order to enshrine the rights of sexual minorities.
The Supreme Court also ordered the government this year to recognize a non-heterosexual marriage of a Nepali with a foreigner and issue a spousal visa.
However, the country’s LGBTQ community — estimated at more than 900,000-strong — still faces discrimination, particularly for jobs, health and education.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion