Draft marriage law hangs over Nepal's LGBT community ahead of rights parade

As activists prepare for Nepal's annual gay pride parade tomorrow, draft laws that would restrict their rights have cast a shadow over the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population.

Drafts prepared in 2011 state that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and include criminal prosecution for "unnatural sex without consent". Activists say these clauses have not been revised in the latest drafts of new civil and criminal law codes.

Sunil Babu Pant, a prominent homosexual-rights activist and former parliamentarian, said the drafts, if they became law, would curtail the rights of the country's sexual minorities and criminalise same-sex relationships.

"The articles in the drafts are vague and the language ambiguous - they're harmful to the LGBT community," Pant said, referring to the 2011 draft codes that were shelved after parliament was dissolved in 2012.

This issue has surfaced at a time when a government committee is ready to submit a study on same-sex marriage.

"When it [targets] 'unnatural sex', it's trying to criminalise everything else apart from heterosexual intercourse," said Sujan Panta, lawyer for the gay-rights organisation Blue Diamond Society.

But a government official said the current draft codes were under review and dismissed the speculations as "rumours".