STATUS OF THE WIDOWS IN NEPAL

-Women for Human Rights, Kathmandu

Widows in Nepal:The Nepalese society is a male dominated society where men make all the decisions and women are viewed as household workers and child bearers. It is but natural that in such an atmosphere women are not properly educated nor properly informed of their rights and legal procedures. This worsens after a Nepalese woman is widowed. In Nepali context the society divides women as married and widowed. Married status confers a certain social recognition where as widow has the opposite of that. However the loss of the marital status is due to the death of the husband, the woman has a recognized status that of a woman to be pitied which is enforced by the strict social norms and values. In most of the family, widowed women are held responsible for the death of their husbands. It is common for remaining relatives of the deceased husband to view the widow women as an ill omen and mistreat her.

Social policy: Most of the widows are forced into a life of humiliation by their in laws as the family structure in Nepal is mainly a joint family type. Widows are always looked upon with suspicion. As a whole, the family and the society disrespect widows. Widows are considered as ill omen and declared as the cause of the husband’s death. It is considered not proper to be around them as there are superstitions that consider them to be creator of ill fortune. This becomes more so if the women is unfortunate enough to be widowed at a young age.

Remarriage to widow women is a taboo in Nepalese society. It is uncommon in Nepalese society even if some young widows were to be courageous enough to consider remarriage. It is natural that her exploiters would oppose this even if the legal system guarantees this right to Nepalese widows. In rural areas widows are not allowed to go out of the house and are identified as witches, ill omen, and husband killer etc.

Some of them have been exploited by the family and blamed as prostitutes, which is common in case of younger widows.

Support structures within the families:As talking with the 50 young widows, we found that very few had taken refuge in the paternal house but more widows felt that instead of being disrespected in their paternal house, it is better to stay in their husband’s house despite of their troubles. Some of them remain in their husband’s house with the hope of getting property rights. As the case with Nepalese women is that they are not well educated nor well informed, they don’t have confidence in themselves to be independent. They do not have enough encouragement to start a means of earning on their own. Their in laws think that she should be completely at their mercy so that they may make a virtual slave of her and children; and that they may divide the property that rightfully belongs to her among themselves as they wish. All this sounds incredible but it is happening in most of the places in Nepal.

In Nepal number of child widows is significantly less though some cases are still found in inner Terai, where early marriage is prominent.

Social customs: Widows are denied of their rights on their own body such as that they are not allowed to wear red and bright clothes and are not allowed makeup. In some western parts of Nepal widows are forced to shave their heads and wear white clothes.

In most places, widows being treated as ill omen and are not allowed to be present during auspicious occasions. She is not allowed to participate in religious and ceremonial functions of the family and community and she is expected to remain inside so as not to bring ill luck. They are not allowed to talk with other males; so they feel inferior and loose their self-confidence. In some places widows are made to eat vegetarian food and even have restrictions on some food. Widows have to cook for themselves and cannot eat food touched by others. Due to these rules and their weak economic status widows are denied of healthy life. It differs from rural to urban areas and age also varies the social customs to the widows.

Role of the Religious body: Most of the holy books have set aside do’s and don’t for widows which the society follows and forces the widows to follow. Most of the widows believe that their condition is due to the sins committed by them in their previous lives; so they don’t want to commit more sin by going against the set rules for them. The priest or the religious leaders emphasize the need for the widows to live in holy places.

It is also differs among the religion.

Children and their welfare:In Nepal, most of the women are totally dependent upon their husbands as he is the only breadwinner. After husband’s death, women have to take all the responsibilities, but due to illiteracy and lack of proper education widows are not able to support and give proper education to their children. This occurs mostly in rural areas. There is no guarantee that the widow’s children will be properly educated nor that they will be financially safe in spite of the case that the deceased husband may have left behind sufficient property. So the dropout rate from schools in case of widow’s children are quite high.There are more cases of psychological depress among the children without father.

In some ethnic caste in Nepal, a widow marries her husband’s younger brother just to give security to her children.

Government policies:There is no special support from the government to the widows in Nepal except for the Rs.100 per month given to the elderly widows. But the procedures and the rules to get the money are difficult to the elderly widows. As for example citizenship is necessary to get the money but most elderly women do not have a citizenship.

Widows are unaware of their legal rights, so in villages widow don’t even ask for their property with their in laws. In the context of Nepalese law, a widow cannot ask for the property until her in laws provides her with food and shelter, unless she is 30 years or 15yrs of marriage. After of her son reaches 16 years, she has to take his permission to sell and to give the property. If a widow remarries she has to give back the property to the rightful heir.

A widow will get her share of the property, insurance, pension, and compensation of her deceased husband as long as she remains a widow; but not if she remarries.

In Nepal Army & police the family get NRS 12 lacks as compensation if the person dies while in duty. It also varies among the offices.

Economic conditions:In Nepal most of the widows do not have enough encouragement to start a means of earning on her own due to the social structure which is totally male dominated. In most of the houses, the family or her in laws desire to keep the widow daughter in law as a household worker. As most of the widows are not well educated nor well informed, it is mostly the case that her in laws, relatives or any ill intentioned person exploits her with the intention of keeping her as a free domestic servant and acquiring the property that rightfully belong to her.

This particularly happens in rural areas, where joint families control the property and the males of the house takes care of the widow and her children. Due to lack of self-confidence and knowledge, it is difficult to earn a living for a widow.

It also differs from the rural to urban areas. In urban areas widows are involved in some job or in small entrepreneur business.

While talking with the 50 widows from different backgrounds, we found out that the biggest problem after their husband’s death was the financial problem that they faced. Due to weak financial status most of them were totally dependent on their in laws and very few were remaining in their parent’s house. A handful of widows were independent and living on their own. Some less fortunate widows had set their living as sex workers.

Initiations for the welfare of the widows:Though women are considered as second-class citizen all over the world, widows are even more oppressed and discriminated by the society. Due to the social structure, there are vast discrimination among men and women. Women are over worked and due to the social beliefs, women have less confidence and are dependent on others. So after being a widow women are unable to cope with such a situation.

Keeping this in mind a group of educated women opened a forum named Women For Human Rights to help needy young widows, with the aim of providing legal guidance, development skills for employment or self employment, advice on any concerned issue, and the awareness in the Nepalese society that widows are just like anyone else and they should be helped and respected.

It is the goal of this forum to provide the kind of information to such women so that they are aware of what rightfully belongs to them. This forum concerns only young widows in the assumptions that elder widows would have already been settled. WHR also provides legal advice and help through professional lawyers and if necessary helps them to take their case to court. It also helps widowed women to be self reliant through employment or through trainings in practical fields so that they may be employed in small-scale industries. But WHR realized that widows lacked awareness and confidence to come forth and share their problems with others. So keeping this in mind, WHR helped to open a small support group meant only for widows last year mainly to provide a platform for the women to share their problems with others like them. This group meets once in a month. WHR has also recently begun to market the products made by the widows in an effort to make them financially self-reliant.

Other than the support group WHR also works closely with VDCs so as to extract information concerning the widows from them. It has been successful in providing support to needy widows with the help of Defense Ministry, Women, Children & Social Welfare Ministry and local organizations like Tewa and Sachetana.

It is true that there exist a significant number of organizations for the welfare of the women in Nepal but there have been no other agencies or foundations, neither form the government nor form the non government side, to look specifically upon widows who are discriminated on the basis of marital status.

Conclusion:The notions and superstitions associated with widows in Nepal are age old and have been ingrained into the social norms. Sexual exploitations and abuse by male counterparts are the bad experiences of most of the young widows.

It will take plenty of hard work, time and patience to change the negative attitude towards widowed women. Government agencies, human rights groups and women organizations should pay attention to the welfare of the widows in Nepal. International cooperation and coordination is also very important to bring the change.

There should be more awareness campaigns, counseling center and open forum for the widows. Legal awareness programs should be conducted in villages to make women aware about their legal rights. There is also need for income generating training for the widows so that they can be independent. It is most important to build self-confidence in them. As remarriage is accepted by the legal system, the society should do the same.

The Maoist insurgency has taken more than 2000 lives within last 5 years. This has significantly increased the numbers of young widows in Nepal. Recently on survey by an NGO noted that more than 368 widows were present in the western region of Nepal. Though the government of Nepal has rules set for compensation for the Maoists victim and state victims but till today only a few people have got the rightful compensation. Now a days many NGOs have come together to support the victim’s family.

In an ancient period there was a custom for the Nepali women to go Sati (cremated along with her dead husband). Though this sort of custom has been banned from the society, we still find the widows as "Living Satis".

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