The Importance Of Women’s Day To End Gender Discrimination

By Prativa Subedi

WOMEN’S Organisations and Institutions have been working in Nepal for a long time. If we look at their history we find many organisations that were formed along social as well as political lines. At the call of the United Nations. Women’s Year was first celebrated in 1975. From 1975 to 1985 the Women’s Decade was declared and women’s programmes began in governmental fields. After the people’s movement for democracy in 1990, the banned political organisations and institutions were reorganised and formed. In the social field, organisations related to women were widely established. At the present time, these organisations can be divided into three categories, social, political and governmental. In recent years as well, no remarkable changes have been seen after the restoration of the democracy. Compared to the policy makers, the general public is far more sensitised to gender issues. There is a lack of attention to the development of disadvantaged people and women.

At the beginning of the nienteenth century with the establishment of industries in the western countries, women started to work outside the home. But working time was 15 to 16 hours. For the first time, American women protested in the streets, of New York against exploitation in the industries. They also demanded voting rights for women. This protest was organised on 8 March 1908. In 1910, about a hundred women gathered in Copenhagen to express concerns about women’s rights and the peace and security of women workers. Copenhagen conference .decided to celebrate Women’s Day on March 8th International Women’s Day was celebrated for the first time in 1911 in five countries (America, Austria, Germany, Denmark, and Switzerland).

When we analyse the situation of women in Nepal today, we cannot separate it from the social, economic, and political systems. The special role of culture and religion, together with the country’s geographical features, must also be considered. The various ethnic communities and different geographical and cultural regions exhibit a wide variety of social values that also have an impact on the situation of Nepali women. It can be said without reservation that Nepali women from all groups and areas are exploited and oppressed.

The majority of the population is self-employed in the agricultural sector. Nepali women make an important contribution to the agricultural activities of the country, but because their work is not considered productive from an economic point of view, their contribution is not included in the national statistics. The gender-sensitive economists and social critics are now promoting for use of the Genuine Progress Indicator in place of GNP/GDP because this takes into account impaid work. Also today’s statistics do not count child work as productive work.

Sixty per cent of the population is illiterate, and only about 30 per cent of the women are literate. In the education sector there is much gender discrimination, with enrolment among the primary students at 60 per cent for boys and 40 per cent for girls, and only about 17 per cent of the 14 to 15-year-old children are having access to secondary schools. The education of a girl is often seen as a special favour.

This status of girls and women is responsible for creating an environment where they can become victims of violence. Violence is the outcome of the women’s image in the family and society. Due to the negative attitude towards girls and women, they are seen as sex objects and blamed, even when they are sold and raped. Even in their own homes, they are not safe. Every day many of your young women are lost from their homes. Our socialisation pattern has helped people to develop negative ideas towards girls and women. Many say that girls and women are sold because they are poor, but in fact the real reason is that they consider their daughters to be only a commodity to be used as barter.

Life expectancy at birth is 55 years. Nepal is one of the few countries in the world where the life expectancy for women is lower than that of men (53.32 years as compared to 54.8 for men). The infant mortality rate is 85 per 1000. The contribution of Nepali women to the national economy is very significant, but they are paid less than men as agricultural labourers. In all areas of Nepal, the work burden for women is higher than that for men, yet the majority of the people, especially women, are deprived of their basic needs of life. Because of the extreme vulnerability of women, they are at the greatest risk of becoming victims of violence.

Most of the present laws that discrimination against women have been in existence since this Civil Code of 1963 and are incompatible with the provisions in the Contribution of the Kingdom of Nepal 1990. A women inherits her share of property from the share of her husband. According to the law of inheritance, the property should be shared among father, mother, wife and son. The daughter has no share of the property. A women has to marry in order to get share of property, and in this way, she is made dependent upon her husband.

In order to bring about gender equality, three needs to be a complete change in the attitudes of the family and society towards women. Our education system is also gender insensitive and continues to perpetuate patriarchal values. The social norms imposed on women have made of them hesitant to walk or talk freely to others in public. Due to a constant fear of having their character and reputation spoken ill of, many women feel unsafe to venture out on their own.

Political polarisation and political instability are major obstacles to the women’s movement. The force of political ideologies is one of the major factors in dividing women. It is essential for women to be represented at all levels of government, including the grassroots level, and to be represented in the executive, judiciary and legislative branches of governmental. What have we gained for such a long term effort? The women’s movement is still not blooming like a flower. Nepali women involved in social, political, and governmental areas have not been able to put their agenda forward strongly. The government does not have a serious commitment to women’s issues. This is the day for us to celebrate out achievements, define our challenges, and raise a voice against the various forms of exploitation against women.

Why Fuss About Cabin Restaurants?

By: Prakash Dahal

ROUND the corner, by the Gaushala cross-roads, at a stone throw from Pashupati and within an arms length from the law enforcing agency, lies the ‘unholy’ place close to the site of ‘holy’ shrine. Fancy stores for foreign goods down, dingy cabins up. To get around the flirting waitress in those dark cabins, one has to elbow his way through the slender passage to the plywood partitioned cells. As the evening wears in, so are the cabins packed with tipsy revelers. On daytime, the cabins draw wayward youth under marijuana drowsiness or the teenagers in school outfit stealthily sneak in.

The girls down there, the ‘service girls’ and the ‘entertainers’ swarm in and out of cabins, withdrawing from one and slithering into the other.

The nubile ‘entertainers’ are meagerly paid. Their jackpot machines are the ‘guests’- the cabin occupants. The girls know that fortune alone doesn’t hit the jackpot, they got to know the knack of the trade.

The more sensuous and pleasure giving they can act inside those squalid cells, the greater the chances are for a big hunt. Everything depends on the ‘art of governance’ which unfortunately is lacking all over. Crude vulgarity and ugly obscenity alone don’t pay. The whisky-born magnanimity ceases to spill forth from the alcohol infused heart at the site of those crude and suggestive remarks, these days. The golden-grape emotionalism begets pseudo-idealism that in turn makes the alcohol-consumed cabin-sitters look for something different- a pleasure filled with pathos. They don’t want to be seen as crude dealers but a great sympathizer possessing a heart that bleeds for the girls and eyes shedding tears at their ‘sorrowful’ plight. They want to tell them that they are not the ones who take advantage of their weak and vulnerable position. Much in the same way as the cabin lassies want themselves look different from what they are. The girls with itching palms need to be submissive, pathetic and pleasurably sensuous to melt the ‘messiah’. Those acting obsequious, innocent, rousing pity and mercy with cooked-up stories, highly professional but giving no air of it, can really make fortune. Archana Shrestha (name change), 18, has, by and by, developed the qualities. She doesn’t harp on one and only string to evoke sympathy or rouse mercy from her clients. She can act, wear gloom in her face, moisten her eyes and pretend to be lost in trackless jungles of pain.

The first story this ‘Palpali’ girl starts with is that she is married to a man twice her age and is jobless and that she has a baby to feed. In other cabin with a new occupant possessing thick wallet, Archana will go like ‘My husband suffers from leukemia and that she has to earn for his treatment’. Elsewhere, she goes like,’ I have two sisters studying in campus and she has to look after their studies’ so on and so forth.

The cabin girls come from heterogeneous mix of ethnicity. Seems everyone, right from Himalyan maidens to high-hill lass and Teraian damsels, all have been herded into these cabin restaurants.

The law enforcing agents in blue beret don’t seem to inspire fear or sin as no lines of fear marks their faces

Though they don’t fear the cops, they pretend so. Nearly always, around 8.00pm, one of these girls raises alarm rushing to every cabin. The message she conveys is that the cops are down there and might come up at any moment. She rang the alarm bell to bring the revelers and the entertainers on their toes. Most of them know when, what time and for what purposes, the cops would appear in the scene. The cops even know it for ages that what the restaurants are for and what they do inside those cabins. Its an open secret which either of them, the girls and the cops are better known about.

The cabins are there. The girls are there. The cops are there.

The cops keep on raiding. The cabin restaurants keep on running. They say, cabin restaurants emit social perversions. They may be right. Then, why not throw the plywood partitioned cells out of the restaurant? Or, make them chose only one- cabin or the girls! They can’t have both.

It seems neither of them mean what they say. Like the entertainers, who want their clients to find them different than what they are, the clients want to look different from what they actually are, the cops and the social reformers too, want to do what they don’t really mean.

And therefore, they keep on raiding, the cabin restaurants keep on running. The girls are there to raise alarm and the cops down there to negotiate.

Everything is in order and on smooth run. So, why make a fuss about the whole nonsense?

Unending Water Woe

BY BT

THE painful problem of parched pipelines panics the people here every year. With number of thirsty souls shooting up every day and those with tact, vision, resources and courage to bring abundant flow to the valley becoming the rarest breed, it is but natural the hue and cry over water shows no sign to subside.

There is no use praying for the rain god Indra since it is not just a matter of water but an issue of the commodity’s competent management. Sadly enough, the water management sphere does not fall in the Rain God’s jurisdiction. The men in charge of management are the politicians with promises galore. It’s an enigma and a case of dejection, no one ever comes with a panacea that all expect as granted. The inescapable reality is that the pipelines dating back to Bir Shumshere era keep leaking, taps go trickling, more stone spouts go dry and groundwater deposit keeps shrinking.

All these phenomena boil down to this— demand for the elusive commodity far exceeds the liquid available in store.

When the dryness of the year hits the hardest, the thirsty denizens may want to cry in desperation but the wild wail won’t wane the woe. The suffering keeps intensifying until the gloomy water issue becomes the cause of our doom. And nothing will be left for defence than the self-consolation that we are graded as the second richest in water resources in the globe.

Blame goes to lame management as a considerable portion of water is admitted to have lost in leakage. Also, there are areas in the valley where people say, there is an ‘overflow’ round the clock whereas many neighbourhoods have to go with dry taps for weeks. Negligence compounded with complacency has contributed to make the matter worse. We ill-manage our abundant resources, suffer to the brink of death and wait ironically for outsiders to come in our rescue. If the extreme hardships do not teach lessons and reverse our approach and attitude, what on earth will?

Despite the daunting water scarcity repeating itself with increased force every year, there is no initiatives like preserving more watershed areas, replacing the obsolete and rusty pipelines, balancing distribution for all areas and shutting the environmentally destructive stone quarries being run in different areas of the valley. These are the steps that probably do not require the investment of the multinationals.

Our water affluence has an ironic outcome like in the tale of a Kakakool, a legendary mythological bird fabled for its great unquenched thirst. Though it may be living in a place blessed with rivers in full flow, yet, it undergoes a prolonged ordeal of thirst until the relieving spell of rain comes. An imposing paradox is that the poor bird can quench its thirst only with the rain water collected in a tree hollow. The crystal clear water in rivers, it is said, appears like blood to this bird and rejects to drink. Is it this very vision defect that has barred our policy makers from tapping this vast resource for the common good?

Kathmanduites are already compelled to feel the impact of water shortage with supply coming only every other day. The real dry days are still far away and the sort of rationing coming about now gives some serious message. With half of the valley’s 117 stone spouts gone dry and with no breakthrough made to augment the flow in main supply lines, the situation appears really alarming. And the ground water is not a reliable source. With excessive pumping, plus the concrete structures in the city standing as a barrier to the recharging process, this water reservoir is shrinking to the critical level. Furthermore, while boring a deep tube well is costly, using a shallow one is not free from pollution. Even the water from the main supply lines is not clean, a fact supported by government notice inculcating to drink water only after boiling.