PANEL DISCSSION REPORT

Organized by WOREC Nepal:

 Facilitated by Sunita Mainali; Executive Director of WOREC

   13 April 2026 (30 Chaitra 2082BS)

Executive Summary

This report documents the proceedings of a virtual panel discussion organized by the Women’s Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC) Nepal, focused on the intersection of digital platforms, democracy, and gender-based violence. The discussion brought together a researcher and feminist activist, a journalist, an artist-activist, and a legal practitioner, each offering a distinct vantage point on an increasingly urgent concern: the systematic use of online spaces to silence, shame, and surveil women and marginalized communities in Nepal.

The discussion surfaced a pattern that extends well beyond individual incidents of online harassment. Panelists documented how the same power structures that constrain women’s participation in public life politically, socially, and culturally are now finding potent expression in digital spaces. The mechanisms differ; the intent does not. Whether through coordinated trolling of women politicians, the circulation of manipulated videos, or the routine dismissal of women’s intellectual contributions as fodder for body-based commentary, these acts share a common logic: to establish the terms on which women may, or may not, speak.

The panelists called for digital violence to be treated as a state emergency, and for a feminist movement that is as active and organized in digital spaces as it is in physical ones.