Gauri Pradhan - Work On Child Rights

Work On Child Rights

Immediately after graduating from university, and recognizing that the rights of the child were not being adequately considered in Nepal, Gauri Pradhan established the NGO called CWIN-Nepal, the pioneer child rights organisation in Nepal. During the 1980s Nepal was still in an era when an independent NGO movement had not yet taken root, and social work was limited to a few charity actions strictly under the government control. He became one of the pioneering leaders of a general movement for NGOs, and specifically to raise the voice of an independent civil society on issues such as child labour, child abuse, bonded labour, street children, human trafficking and child marriage, which were almost non-issues in the society at that time.

Gauri Pradhan also became the first National Coordinator of Central Child Welfare Board (CCWB), the high level state organization on the rights of children, representing civil society. As the National Coordinator, he was actively involved in the formulation of the "Ten Years National Plans of Action (NPA) for Children in Nepal for the period of 2005-2014." He was the President of Children at Risk Networking Group (CAR-NWG) from 1992 to 1997. He had also served the Global March against Child Labour as the South Asia Regional Coordinator and International Coordination Committee member from 2003 to 2007. Likewise, he was also nominated to act as an Adviser to the UN-NGO Committee on Violence against Children in 2006.

He has been also engaged in a number of rescue-operation of children at risk for protection including the repatriation of 138 trafficked girls to Nepal from Mumbai in 1996. He co-initiated the Women Defend Pressure Group and Alliance Against Trafficking in Women And Children (AATWIN) together with women activists in Nepal.