A/HRC/41/42/Add.2 abuse, indiscriminate body searches and severe beatings, as well as harassment and arbitrary detainment, on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity. Further reports suggest the existence of medically unnecessary procedures on intersex infants and children without their free, prior and informed consent. 20 70. The Special Rapporteur is concerned at reports suggesting that women human rights defenders have been targeted, criticized, threatened, intimidated, subjected to surveillance and harassed, including online, because of their gender and their work. At least 95 per cent of the documented incidents show that women human rights defenders, as well as their family members and intimate partners, face reprisals, death threats, verbal abuse and harassment by State and non-State actors to delegitimize their work. 21 71. Muslim women constitute approximately 4.4 per cent of the population and live mainly in the Terai region. They are typically less literate compared with the national average22 and tend to suffer disproportionately from poverty and to lack access to basic health care, water and sanitation. 23 In article 18 (3) of the new Constitution of 2015, Nepalese Muslims are recognized as a distinct and marginalized community. However, they continue to face, at every stage of their lives, gender-based violence and discrimination, including sex-selective abortion, differential access to food, education and medical care, child marriage, dowry-related, domestic and/or spousal violence, sexual exploitation and abuse, trafficking, elder abuse and traditional harmful practices. 24 Muslim and Madhesi women and girls living in the Rautahat district experience the highest levels of physical violence (34 per cent) and spousal physical, sexual or emotional violence (37 per cent) in Nepal. Only 15 per cent of the women living in Province 2 (where Rautahat is located) who have experienced physical or sexual violence have ever sought help, the lowest rate in the country. Many such cases are not recorded officially and escape public knowledge. H. Provision of shelters and access to essential services 72. In 2017, the Government established one-stop crisis management centres in hospitals in 20 districts. As at September 2018, such centres had been established in 45 districts (see CEDAW/C/NPL/Q/6/Add.1, para. 53), although they were not fully operational. During her visit, the Special Rapporteur was concerned by the fact that almost all interlocutors with whom she met pointed to the dire shortage of adequate shelters across the country offering a safe house for women and girls who have been victims of violence, within indigenous communities in particular and in rural and remote areas. The limited support provided to the shelters that are in place and the lack of coordinated, genderfriendly and comprehensive essential services for survivors of violence are of considerable concern. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the proposal by the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens to open safe houses in 53 districts under the President’s programme for the upliftment of women. 73. The high level of suicides among women is extremely worrying and may be linked to the fact that women victims of violence feel that they cannot escape, often owing to fear for their lives or to family pressure to reconcile with the perpetrator. The lack of safe shelters and 24-hour helplines, as well as the lack of awareness among women of their rights in such cases, only contributes to the high level of impunity of perpetrators, with 66 20 21 22 23 24 StopIGM, submission for the review of the sixth periodic report of Nepal by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women at its seventy-first session, Geneva, 22 October–9 November 2018. National Alliance of Women Human Rights Defenders, Nepal, submission for the review of the sixth periodic report of Nepal by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women at its seventy-first session, Geneva, 22 October–9 November 2018. Lynn Bennett, “Gender, caste and ethnic exclusion in Nepal: following the policy process from analysis to action”, conference paper prepared for the conference on new frontiers of social policy, Arusha, United Republic of Tanzania, 12–15 December 2005. Available at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTRANETSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/Resources/Bennett.rev.pdf. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2014 (New York, 2014). District police office report, 2017. 15