NATIONAL 5 (Spotlight Weekly)]

A Tale Of Sheer Deprivation

By leaving behind more than half of the total population in utter disregard, South Asia can't take a journey toward modernity

By BHAGIRATH YOGI

A Pakistani tribesman slaughtered his wife and two daughters in the name of so-called "honor-killing" in southwestern Baluchistan province on Sunday night, agency reports said Tuesday. Mohammed Umar Magsi had suspected that his wife was having an affair with someone. In India, 56 percent of women respondents to the second National Family Health Survey said the beating of wives by their husbands was right. Maybe an outcome of age-old traditions. The tale of discrimination against and deprivation of women doesn't end here. It has so different manifestations in other countries of the region.

"There is limited access to the legal system for women despite constitutional guarantees, existence of discrimination in national legal systems, health and shocking profiles of educational deprivation of women," said Khajida Haq, president of the Islamabad-based Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Center (HDC).

The report "Human Development in South Asia-Gender Question" published by the Mahbub ul Haq HDC in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) chronicles the burden of deprivation of South Asian women in all spheres of life.

"The value of South Asian women's labor is neither accounted for in the official statistics nor appreciated by the policymakers. Majority of them work in the informal sector or as unpaid family helper," said Dr. Haq, wife of late Mahbub ul Haq, who popularized the concept of human development by publishing Human Development Reports under the auspices of the UNDP.

The Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, was widely hailed as a turning point in the global struggle for women's rights. All the countries of South Asia have ratified Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women and pledged to end discriminatory practices against women. Five years down the road, there has been very little progress in this region in terms of eliminating gender discrimination against women. "While there has been some progress in terms of process, very little of substance has been accomplished since 1995," the report concluded.

South Asia has the lowest rate of women's participation in governance. In all of South Asia, women occupy only 7 percent of the seats in parliament and 9 percent cabinet posts, They form 6 percent of the judiciary, 9 percent of the civil service and 20 percent of local government.

One of the findings of this year's report, fourth in a series, is that educational deprivation of women is shocking in South Asian . In developing countries, the average female literacy rate has risen from 32 to 63 percent between 1970 to 1997. In South Asia, the average rate has increased only from 17 percent to 37 percent. With a female literacy rate of 37 percent, South Asia has entered the new millennium as a region with the lowest number of women who can read and write. Within the region, Pakistan and Nepal have the worst female literacy rates of 25 and 21 percent respectively (in 1997), the report says.

The report also touches on the health of South Asian women. An estimated 208,000 women in the region die annually because of pregnancy- and birth-related complications. In the region, there are 94 women for every 100 men, as compared to global ratio of 106 women for every 100 men. The infant mortality rate is much higher for girls than for boys in most South Asian countries. (See: Charts)

The report documents how the majority of South Asian women face unequal access to property, protection from harm and decision making powers. The justice system itself is out of reach for most women, because of their low social status, lack of education, and limited public mobility as well as discriminatory attitudes of police and the judiciary.

"Despite being a party to 16 international human rights instruments including CEDAW, Nepal still has at least 118 legal provisions spread in 54 different laws, including the constitution, that have discriminatory provisions," said advocate Sapana Pradhan Malla, who led a study entitled "Discriminatory Laws in Nepal and their Impact on Women" published in August this year. "Impact of discriminatory laws have been multifaceted, restricting their options for development and growth in virtually every sphere of life, both private and social."

With nearly 50 percent of the population below absolute poverty, bringing about equality and justice to Nepalese women is a Himalayan task, say experts. Nepal is the only country in the world where average life expectancy of women (57.6 years) is lower than that of men (58.1 years). The literacy rate of women (28 percent) is less than half of that of men (62 percent). Life expectancy at birth in Nepal is 57.8 years, which is 4.2 years lower than the average in all South Asian countries.

South Asian women work at least 10 to 12 hours a day while men, on an average, work 2 to 4 hours less and still in rural areas women earn about Rs 32 for the work done to men's Rs 100, the study said.

In Nepal 84 percent of economically active women are self-employed.

The workload of Nepalese women is immense. They work about 16 hours every day. They are engaged in agriculture, carpet factory and other wage labor activities. They are the ones who are forced to prostitution and sold to Indian brothels in thousands of numbers every year. It has been estimated that between 5,000 to 7,000 girls between the ages of 12 and 20 are trafficked out of Nepal each year.

On the economic front, complicating economic disparity is the increasing feminization of poverty, say experts. "Generally women have much less access to institutional credit, both at individual and household enterprise levels irrespective of ecological regions, urban/rural areas and ethnic/caste," said Dr. Meena Acharya, an economist.

Of course, there are some positive developments of late. An encouraging trend is that there is the presence of approximately 40,000 elected women representatives at the ward committees in about 4,000 village development committees and more than 50 municipalities. This is due to the provision of a 20 percent seat reservation at this level. "However, women lack the power to contribute significantly even within these roles as most of the resources are controlled by their male colleagues," said advocate Malla.

So, what needs to be done? "What is needed is nothing less than a revolution for gender equality. Development must be engendered. Societies cannot succeed while suppressing the talents of half their members," said late Mahbub ul Haq.

Agreed Dr. Henning Karcher, Resident Representative of the UNDP in Kathmandu, "Governments must play a key and leading role in moving the agenda of women empowerment and gender equality forward, little will be achieved until and unless demand is created for the realization of basic women rights from the grassroots,"

To improve the pathetic and inhumane situation of women in the region, the South Asian HDR has recommended various suggestions such as equality under law, equality of access of capacity building, of economic opportunities and governance. Achieving meaningful and sustainable gender equality requires the creation of a new relationship between governments, civil society and international agencies. Governments must be made to realize that it is in their best interest to incorporate gender into planning and policy-making, said the report The report clarified that it was calling for nothing less than equality with menóbut not equality of misery and deprivation. Increasing women's social and economic well being is a means of enhancing a whole society's social and economic well being. After centuries long slumber, perhaps the time has come for the South Asian community to arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached, as preached by Upanishads.