Empowering Rural Women Focus On Safe Motherhood

By Jhabindra Bhandari

IN a developing country like Nepal, where majority of the population live in rural areas relying heavily on subsistence farming, the development scenario in the remote areas of the country presents a gloomy picture. Widespread poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and political conflicts have made all parts of rural life even more miserable. More importantly, the impacts of all these development problems are apparently visible and, truly women and children are most affected.

Challenges

Women who constitute almost half of the total population of the country are still facing many problems and challenges. In a male dominated society like ours, rural women have low social mobility, access to and control over resources and poor participation in decision making process in all aspects of development activities. They have overburdened with the increasing household activities, farming including care of children and elderly. Even, socio-economic opportunities to women are constrained with the male dominating attitude in almost all societies. The most worrying point is that their recognition of work and strength is almost ignored.

Due to illiteracy and poor health status, rural women suffer most. In the recent years, participation of women in social, economic and political aspects have been increasingly raised by policy makers, planners, development workers and civil society organisations. Greater awareness of gender equality and equity and the attempts of mainstreaming gender equity in all aspects of local development initiatives are the emerging needs and priorities for sustainable development.

Similarly, many rural girls and women do seasonally migrate to cities for economic opportunities. However, they are most vulnerable to trafficking and have been even trafficked to India and other countries every year - especially from the remote hill districts. Ultimately, they suffer serious sexual harassment and exploitation at the workplace. There are enough evidences of many women returning to home country with serious psychological and health problems - especially sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS.

Despite all these ground realities, community development programmes of local NGOs and INGOs have been, however, crucial in most of the areas of their intervention - that largely focuses on empowerment of rural women through education, capacity building and income generation opportunities. These efforts are truly effective to raise confidence of rural women through their active participation in development programmes. Much of the savings and credit schemes, micro-finance and income generation initiatives of rural development banks have yielded positive impacts on the rural livelihoods.

In a country like Nepal where maternal mortality is 539 per 100,000 live births - one of the highest in the world, achieving safe motherhood is the mounting challenge ahead. Every year, a large number of rural women die due to pregnancy related complications during childbirth. The causes are mostly evident due to poor accessibility and availability of reproductive health services in the remote health facilities. Similarly, neo-natal and infant mortality rate are considerably high in the remote parts. With the limited primary health care services, the larger population of rural women have been seriously facing poor access to safe motherhood services in the district hospitals, primary health care centres, health posts and sub-health posts.

Maternal deaths have very serious consequences within the family, given the crucial role of mother for her children and welfare. Such deaths, undoubtedly, increases the risk to survival of her young children. Realising the gravity of such a huge social tragedy in the country, the health ministry is focusing safe motherhood as an important strategy to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality. Attempts from government, NGOs and external development partners are continuously being made to promote women's health and safe motherhood. In this context, empowering rural women with the education and knowledge of danger signs of pregnancy and timely referral to health facilities is extremely essential.

The importance of safe motherhood is apparently clear. Complications related to pregnancy and childbirth are among the leading causes of mortality for women of reproductive age in many parts of the developing world. At the global level, it has been estimated that about half a million women die each year of pregnancy related causes, 99 per cent of them in developing countries. And, hence the gap in maternal mortality between developed and developing regions is wide.

According to World Health Organisation, the risk of dying from pregnancy or child birth related causes 1 in 20 in some developing countries, compared to 1 in 10,000 in some developed countries. The worth noting is that the age at which the women begin or stop child-bearing, the interval between each birth, the total number of life time pregnancies and the socio-cultural and economic circumstances in which women live all influence maternal morbidity and mortality. Therefore, there are urgent needs of socio-economic investment in safe motherhood.

The Crux

Ultimately, the crux of the matter is: empowerment and autonomy of women and the improvement of their political, social, economic and health status. Improving the status of women enhances their decision making capacity at all levels. There is no doubt that education is one of the most important means of empowering women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence necessary to participate fully in the development process. This must be the agenda towards achieving sustainable development.

IT For Economic Change

By Khilendra Basnyat

IN THIS world, there is nothing permanent except change. This is especially true in the information age. The information age started by mid-twentieth century. The Cold War and its arms race for technical and military dominance provided a chronic impetus to information dissemination.

Rapid

Rapid changes are taking place regarding information dissemination, which is not easy to understand. Technology development has been the driving force in all these changes, expediting transactions and disseminating financial information to a broad category of people.

In fact, countries that stick to the rural-based economic systems such as the gold standard and neglect the technology-based market will lose foreign capital, imported technology and domestic jobs.
Today, there has been information revolution in this world. This revolution is accompanied by communication revolution. A series of development activities are taking place almost together in a non-linear model. These activities can confuse and confound traditional thinking and functioning.
The information revolution empowers individuals as well as elite. It creates more choices and greater insights.

The information revolution reduces soldiers' risks in warfare and increases the cost of conflict. It can lead to the supremacy of the possessors of information technology, which leads to the vulnerabilities to the same possessors from weak nations. Information revolution cedes some state authorities to non-state sectors and consequently produces political forces calling for strengthening. It is the best tool for democrats and best weapon for demagogues.

The information revolution is making available new tools for marketing reforms and democratic institutions. Recently, information technology has been used to promote business and market development.

The large volume and mobility of electronic forms of money is changing the global economy. It calls for a change in the thoughts of the people and governments. Also, this has an impact on international relations and the way nations interact with each other. A mere look at some of the manifestations of the arrival of information technology in international relations clearly brings out the change in nature and exercise of power. The development of electronic commerce (e-commerce) is worthnoting.

Although e-commerce did not exist before 1995, it will constitute one trillion dollars business by the year 2003. Generally, e-commerce is reshaping entire industries, particularly financial services, telecommunication services, businesses, consulting services, travel and entertainment. Actually, it is revolutionary in three aspects.

To begin with, there are many users. Large corporations and banks are now jointed by local retail establishments and households rather than anyone with a few thousand dollars worthy of equipment.
Second, there is a high level of technological change in the information industry. Third, there is the worldwide availability of information.

After the inception of the e-commerce, consumers have been able to go directly to the producers without going through retailers, wholesalers and distributors. Now intermediaries will network access providers and electronic payment transactions. However, the outcome should be something approaching the ideals of perfect competition such as low transaction costs, low barriers to entry and improved access to information for the consumers.

In reality, e-commerce has thrown a new set of regulatory and tax related issues. It does not seem to occur in physical location but takes place in the nebulous world cyberspace. In the existing system, geographic location of jurisdiction determines which authority has the right to tax the income arising from the transaction or the sales on value added tax. In e-commerce, the transaction may be conducted over many geographic locations. It is expected to benefit e-commerce sales of about $ 32 billion by 2003.

Asia s adopting e-commerce and payment systems rapidly. However, the globalisation of financial markets reduces the e-business figure. Nowadays, private currency traders trade $ 1.3 billion a day, more than the total foreign currency reserves of all nations combined together. Private capital flows have been increasing twice as fast as trade for years. In modern world, power is measured in terms of economic and technological capabilities. Actually, information technology has pervaded almost all walks of our life. The Internet has further revolutionised the reach of this technology.

The Internet is a decentralised computer system available to individuals and small private companies that can participate freely in trade and business. This provides the world with free telecommunication infrastructure. This is why many see the Internet as a symbol of globalisation. No doubt, electronic governance is essential for the overall development of a country. However, effective electronic governance in a digital world economy will require increased harmonisation of national legislature and regulation and much more international organisations.

Information technology has given states new tools and mechanisms for assessing their sovereign power and authority in the financial sector. It will have a deep impact on the world economy.
The large volume and mobility of money, short-term capital flows, money used for high technology networks and the replacement of old products and services with more efficient and technology-intensive method will give a new meaning to international economy.

No doubt, information technology has helped to throw up various contradictory phenomena including the strengthening of the forces of anarchy and control. However, information technology has been the main prerequisite and lubricant of international economic changes.

Positive

Positive relationship exists between the expansion of some forms of international trade, especially services and world financial markets on the one hand and the ability to communicate efficiently and
rapidly on the other. Actually, the international flow of information has always been directly related to transnational economic changes, especially trade and investment.

Court And Women

By Ananta Raj Luitel

WHEN Shree Prasad Upreti, Principal of Basundhara Boarding School was sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment and half of his property was granted to the child victim in the case of raping an eight year old child, his wife fainted in the court. The thought of being a rapist's wife must have upset her more than the separation from her husband.

On the day that the court made the decision, the Upreti family members were not only anxious but also furious. The wife fainted and the handcuffed husband was furious at the decision made by Advocate Dr. Anand Mohan Bhattarai. He not only used abusive language but also screamed that he should have been given the death sentence instead of 8 years imprisonment. He was trying to show his innocence by asking for death sentence. But, the decision had already been made based on the proof that was produced against him.

The decision of the court came right after the decision on marital rape had been announced. The decision on marital rape was announced by senior advocate Laxman Prasad Aryal, Chief Justice Kedar Nath Upadhyay and advocate Krishna Kumar Burma on 2nd June 2002. Column 1 on forceful rape of the Country Act states that rape committed with or without agreement against girls, widows, other's wife, women under 16 years of age and without consent of women over sixteen years of age is defined as forceful rape. Advocate Meera Dhungana had filed a petition since the column did not have any provisions on relations with the husband.

The court ordered the government to amend the law incorporating 'one's wife' in the law. Also the court had eliminated column 7 which stated that Rs. 500 would be levied for a person raping a commercial sex worker as unequal after a writ petition by advocate Sapana Pradhan Malla. Thus, criminals cannot go free by raping a sex worker.

The decision made by the court in 1999 on the Annapurna Rana case was also very popular. The High Court had defied the ruling made by Kathmandu District Court to check the virginity of Ms. Rana to decide whether she was married or not. Ms. Rana had filed a writ petition against the decision made by the Kathmandu District Court stating that it defied the right to privacy stated by Clause 22 of the Constitution. The High Court had read out the clause and decided that the virginity test would not find whether she was married or single. It was stated that having a child or not would not be important in deciding whether she was married or not. It further mentioned that a child can be born through relationships other than marriage. The clause mentions that unless the law requires, a person has a right to the body, residence, property, correspondence or information.

The High Court had also ordered the government to amend the law on equal property rights on a writ petition filed by advocate Mera Dhungana in 1997. On the basis of this, the 11th Amendment Bill has already been passed by the Parliament. The question of the Bill being fully for women still remains. But, it can be said that this is a positive step towards equal property rights.

All the decisions related to women made by the High Court were debatable. There were certain accusations that the court made the decision with disregard to the society and in some cases that the decision was in favour of women. But, the overall decisions are in favour of women empower-ment. Thomas Cole had said "Privacy is the highest level of a person's physique and independence lies on this". Most of the decisions made by the court are based on women's personal independence.

(Sancharika Lekhmala)