National 5 (Spotlight Weekly)

Protection Plea

An alarmingly high number of rural Nepalese women are surviving under the threat of HIV/AIDS

By A CORRESPONDENT

Saraswati Karki (identity changed), a 21-year-old worker in a cabin restaurant in Kathmandu, was badly beaten on Friday evening, as the country was preparing for the grand celebrations of the 93rd International Women's Day the following morning. She was rushed to the local dispensary for primary treatment.

The crime of Karki, a part-time sex worker, was that she refused to go out with a couple of men that evening. Karki is among 1,500 young girls working as waitresses or entertainers at the cabin and dance restaurants of Kathmandu valley, the group most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection. According to a study, 15.61 percent of female sex workers in Kathmandu are HIV infected.

Although Karki is aware of the HIV risk, she does not care about safe behavior. "I often carry condoms, but most of the customers don't want to use it," said Karki. "I don't know whether I am infected by HIV/AIDS, since I am very scared to get a blood test done."

On March 8, celebrations of International Women's Day began, as usual, with a procession of schoolgirls and professional women at the center of Kathmandu. However, there was no one to listen to the plight of women and girls like Karki, who came to Kathmandu from the rural hinterland hoping for a better future.

Defined by upper-class women elite, women's issues are mostly confined to urban areas. In the rural areas, too, they are driven by members of the privileged class. Consequently, the issues concerning a large segment of women are yet to be addressed. Despite regular public demonstrations and pressure initiatives conducted on their behalf, many girls are still denied access to education and are forced to bear a disproportionate share of the workload at home and outside. With the escalation of the Maoist insurgency in recent years, a large number of widows find themselves alone in raising their children.

Amid the current stirrings of peace, it remains to be seen how actively urban women would support their disadvantaged sisters. Karki is among those in need of urgent attention. "The dynamics of the epidemic are especially dramatic in the Kathmandu Valley, where HIV/AIDS prevalence was 2 percent or below among the female sex workers and injecting drug users in the mid 1990s," said Dr. Henning Karcher, UN Resident Coordinator, addressing a function to mark International Women's Day.

"It now exceeds 50 percent among the injecting drug users, is approaching 20 percent among female sex workers and is over 70 percent among female sex workers who also report being injecting drug users. Without effective intervention in Nepal, it is predicted that there may well be generalized epidemic by the end of the decade and AIDS may be the leading cause of death in the age group between 15-49," he said.

Over the years, urban women have succeeded in bringing some legislative change, including the amendment of the Civil Code Act. Some are making efforts to allow their foreign husband to live together in the country. However, there is still much to do in terms of improving the lives of rural women, an imperative that is acknowledged.

"We have been successful in bringing change in micro-level and macro-level of women issues. Our first phase of liberation was mostly related to the property rights, voting rights and other rights, but now we have to go beyond this," said Dr. Meena Acharya. Other, too, stress the need for new thinking. "We must focus our program to change the status of women in the rural areas," said Bharati Silwal-Giri.

In a message on International Women's Day, Thoraya Obadiah, Executive Director of United Nations Population Fund, recalled that over two years ago, world leaders agreed to use the first 15 years of this new century to mount a massive assault on poverty, poor health and gender inequality. They agreed to work with the United Nations to reduce poverty and hunger by half, to reduce infant and maternal mortality, reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, and ensure universal primary education.

Obadiah stressed that the poorest women and girls have the least access to education and health services, which reinforces the cycle of poverty and has serious health consequences. A woman in the developing world faces up to a six hundred times greater chance of dying during pregnancy and childbirth than a woman in wealthier parts of the globe.

"Each minute, one woman dies during childbirth and many more suffer serious disabilities. This crisis, which has enormous social and economic costs, could be reversed if every woman had access to reproductive health services. These basic services include voluntary family planning, adequate care during pregnancy and childbirth and the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS. With the AIDS epidemic slicing through populations, these services are more important today than ever before. So is the partnership and support of men to promote healthy families and communities, and share the burden of care," said Obadiah.

As long as the core issues of women remain overlooked, International Women's Day will just remain a ritual, far removed from people like Karki.