Rights To Women

AFTER years of debate, the proposal to amend the Muluki Ain (Civil Code) vis-à-vis women’s rights and well being was passed by the House of Representatives Tuesday. It took an unconscionable time for various demands related to women’s rights, put forward by women activists, to take the form of a bill. And then the draft bill took many more months to come to the parliamentary table. Then the parliamentary committee where the bills are discussed first before presenting to the parliament took a round of opinion-collecting exercise in various regions of the country. Even at the last moment, there were raging arguments among the members of parliament on what to put in and take out from the proposals. The bone of contention was whether to keep the provision of allowing women to keep the parental property even after marriage or return it in case she married. The bill was passed with the provision that women should return the parental property once she gets married. The passage of the bill was greeted with protests from Opposition MPs who thought it did not give enough to women. Be that as it may, it is incontestable that the current provision is a big improvement on the existing legislation that allows women to claim parental property only if she remains unmarried until the age of 35. She can now claim parental property irrespective of her age but since she has an automatic claim in the property of her husband, she is to relinquish her parental property. Supporters of the just-passed legislation say that it establishes gender equality without disturbing the family structure.

It will not be a surprise if the provision on property rights continue to come under ire from some women activists for a long time to come, but there should be welcome words for other new provisions like doubling the punishment of the culprits involved in serious kinds of crimes and violence against women, including rape and girl trafficking. This has been a long-standing demand of women activists who had argued that the present provisions did not provide enough deterrence. Also necessary was legalising abortion under certain cases which the amendment has done. The complete ban, according to medical experts and social activists, resulted in unsafe abortions, which claimed a large number of Nepalese women every year, making the country one of the countries with a horrible maternal mortality rate. All in all, the passage of the bill is a cause for celebration for addressing the long-neglected women’s rights, though some dissatisfaction on parental property provision is only natural, given the scope and sensitive nature of the issue.

Truant Public Servants

IN a surprise check conducted by the Jhapa district administration office recently, 175 employees working in various government offices in Bhadrapur were found absent. And among those absent were, according to a news item published by this daily, office chiefs and other officers. Considering the fact that Jhapa district is one of the most densely populated districts of the country, the absence of 175 employees from their posts must have inconvenienced many people who had urgent businesses with some of the government offices located in Bhadrapur and they must have had to return home dejected. Not only that, many of them could have been told to come another day. This means they had to knock at the doors of the very same offices the next day to transact the very same businesses. Provided that this time round, all the concerned officials are sitting behind their respective tables. For, even if any one of the numerous government employees that the people have to deal with is not there, then their businesses would get stuck up. One ready reason for this is because of the lengthy bureaucratic procedures through which any government-related business has to pass through.

Truancy in government offices is not a new phenomenon. There had been numerous such cases in the past. But this does not mean that the truant employees should not be let off the hook. Rather, they should be severely reprimanded for not being present during office hours. For, these truant employees, by merely being absent from their posts without any prior notices, not only proved that they had the tendency to be negligent towards their allotted duties but also to evade their responsibilities. As and when a public servant neglects his/her duty and evades his/her responsibility, the ultimate loser will be the very people whom the public servant had pledged to serve when he/she was officially inducted into the bureaucracy. And if a public servant is devoid of any motivation to serve the general public, then a file gets stuck—which leads to a delayed decision. A delayed decision means that an atmosphere of uncertainty would prevail, thereby hampering urgent government work. Since a government in a democracy like ours is people-oriented, it means that much-needed development works get stalled, thereby dashing the hopes, aspirations and dreams of the people for a better life.