Empowering Women
Some Obstacles

By Uttam Maharjan

Men and women are equal in the eyes of the Creator. But as things stand, they are as different as chalk and cheese. It is this chalk-and-cheese situation that has been hampering women’s development for decades, if not centuries.

Deplorable

The condition of women in Nepal is very deplorable. The country has a society built upon the edifice of patriarchy, where males have overwhelming dominion over females.

Although sons and daughters are not discriminated against by law, the Nepalese society prejudices the latter in favour of the former. This is because the filial misconceptions have been inveterate from time immemorial. One of the reasons is that daughters are considered mere objects to be married off, whereas sons are considered the props of the parents in their old age and only sons are allowed by Hinduism to perform the last rites and other obsequies.

It need not be reiterated that the country consists of more rural areas where agricultural and allied activities from the basis of livelihood for the people. In the rural areas, a very negligible number of girls vis-à-vis their male counterparts are got off to school because the people are opposed to the idea of imparting education to girls.

The rate of illiteracy among women is higher than that of men and most women are even ignorant of their rights. Ironically, most women have no say in decision-making, even if the decisions obviously concern them. Such as those concerning reproductive matters.

Being born a woman has certain disadvantages. It is the women who have to struggle everywhere in life for their protection. A woman may fall victim to domestic violence, sexual harassment, rape, mental torture and trafficking. Domestic violence is often confined to homes and so very infrequently comes out into the open. Similarly, most rape cases go unnoticed for fear of losing the victims’ prestige. Even if a rape victim tries to seek redress from law, she has to undergo further victimisation at the hands of medical and legal professionals.

In the same vein, thousands of women end up in the brothels of India and other countries every year and they are destined to live a hellish life there. As per the survey conducted in 1997 by Saathi, an NGO concerned with sheltering domestic violence victims, 87 per cent of women fall victim to domestic violence, 30 per cent are rape victims and 93 per cent are subjected to mental torture. This situation is very appalling and staggering indeed.

The predicament of women in the country may be imputed to discriminatory laws, lack of appropriate laws, weak implementation of international laws against violence and so on. So women’s empowerment has become the catchword nowadays. For women’s empowerment, education and awareness are a must. With this reality in view, the government has initiated women awakening and income generating programmes. The cynosure of the programmes is the women themselves, with the leadership lying with them. This would motivate the women to take interest in the programmes.

The modus operandi of the programmes is such that groups of a certain number of women are formed and loans are granted to them without any mortgage but under their collective guarantee. With the loans, the women can engage in income generating activities. So such programmes aim at awakening women economically, socially and politically, thus raising their standard of living and helping them out of economic and social backwaters.

The government considers women the main target group of poverty alleviation and human resources development. There is the Women Agricultural Division under the Ministry of Agriculture, which is responsible for arranging for informal education for women, improving women’s health, reducing maternal mortality and guaranteeing safe motherhood.

The main obstacles to women’s empowerment are illiteracy and dependence on their male counterparts to such an extent that even their reproductive rights are often violated. So for women’s uplift, the male-dominated inegalitarian societal set-up should be dismantled, women’s participation in the mainstream of development should be enhanced and women’s education should be made gender-sensitive. Further, programmes should be initiated and implemented on a topographical basis so that more and more rural women may be co-opted into the mainstream of national development. Moreover, the government, political parties, NGOs, the media and civil society should work hand in hand to empower women.

Keeping in view the importance of women’s empowerment, which has reached a crescendo over the last many years, the fourth world conference on women was held in Beijing in 1995 AD. The country expressed its commitment to 12 critical areas of concern enumerated in the Beijing Platform of Action. The Platform of Action is considered a precondition for all-round development of women from all strata of society. Also, the Platform binds a nation to adopt strategies of involving women in the mainstream of national development.

In 1997, the country formulated the National Action Plan for all 12 critical areas of concern and developed a prototype for positive portrayal of women in the media. Also, the Multi-Sectoral Women Empowerment National Programme-2054 BS, was drawn up pursuant to the Beijing commitment. The National Action Plan should be strictly implemented not only in urban centres but also in rural areas, where the need of the plan is exigent.

Over the five years since the Beijing Conference, some positive advances have been made by the government. The Ministry of Women has been established, a national policy against girl trafficking has been formulated, a women’s cell in the police service has been set up and awareness raising programmes have been initiated. These activities may be considered major breakthroughs in the field of women’s uplift.

A follow-up meeting was held some months back in New York. The meeting concentrated on reviewing the fulfilment of the Beijing Commitment and the role of governments and civil society. The UN, at the meeting, recommended that as girl trafficking and sexploitation of women would violate women’s rights, governments should work together to extirpate such evils by 2005 AD and that adherence to women’s rights should be a prerequisite for gender equality, development and peace.

Awareness

For women’s empowerment to be stronger, the efforts of the government and other organizations only are not adequate. Unless women themselves try to be aware of their rights and to be self-dependent, the much touted women’s empowerment will remain a cry in the wilderness. So it is women’s awareness that counts much more than anything else.

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