Kathmandu Call for Action

On November 7, 2014, over 65 regional stakeholders in South Asia endorsed a document named the “Kathmandu Call for Action to End Child Marriage in South Asia”, which makes an appeal to governments in the region to ensure legal accountability for child marriage and will support the implementation of a regional action plan to end child marriage from 2015-2018. The document is a product of a regional convening on using the law to end child marriage, which focused on how the lack of government accountability for child marriage is contributing to human rights violations against young girls and women. The convening was organized by the Center for Reproductive Rights in collaboration with the South Asia Initiative to End Violence Against Children (SAIEVAC), and hosted by the Ministry of Women, Children, and Social Welfare of the Government of Nepal. Representatives from member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – participated in the convening, which was supported by the Ford Foundation and UNFPA Asia Pacific Regional Office.