How not to administer justice after a brutal civil war

It has been 20 years since Sushila Chaudhary’s sister was abducted from her village by Nepal’s army, never to return. It has been 18 years since soldiers came to her brother’s house, locked him in a room, and tortured and killed him. Ms Chaudhary, now a lawyer in her mid-30s, has spent the better part of two decades trying to find out who killed her brother and what happened to her sister. Like many others who lost family members during Nepal’s civil war from 1996 to 2006, or who themselves suffered abuse, she has been frustrated by the authorities. “I am sure there are records of who is responsible,” she says. “But they have never given them to us.”