NEPAL: Revolution Reaches Out to Women

By Marty Logan Reprint | | Print |

Marty Logan

KATHMANDU, May 31 2006 (IPS) - The revolution continues in Nepal. But more than a month after the people chased the king from power, sober second thought has taken its place on streets that once thronged with marching, chanting citizens.

On Tuesday, the restored House of Representatives ended one of myriad practices in the former Hindu kingdom that discriminated against women, declaring that a child’s citizenship can be registered in the name of the mother or the father. Formerly the mother’s name could not be used, a practice that discriminated against many women, including rape victims and single mothers.

The proposal, passed unanimously, also pledges to reserve 33 percent of places in the civil service for women and to target all other laws – women’s rights activists have counted 139 of them – that treat women as lesser than men.

Activists and other women reacted happily but cautiously on Wednesday. “It is a very good thing for women who have been facing discrimination for 237 years (considered the birth year of modern Nepal). But we still have to see how this will be implemented,” Lucky Sherpa, spokeswoman of the Nepali Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN), told IPS.

Others preferred to focus on the bright side. “It’s a good start. Women have to be educated first” before they can expect 50 percent of places (a demand heard from many quarters since Tuesday’s announcement), said Nepali language teacher Bhagwati Nepal. “I remember when it was five percent and (at the time) that was also a good start.”

Tuesday’s resolution stated that currently women hold only five percent of places in the bureaucracy.

King Gyanendra reigned for more than a year with a handpicked council of ministers before a peaceful people’s revolution forced him to return power to the dissolved House of Representatives on Apr. 24. The previous democratic government had promised to keep 20 percent of civil service positions for women but the policy was never adopted as law.

The House proposal was passed nearly two weeks after a proclamation, dubbed ‘Nepal’s Magna Carta’, transformed the world’s only Hindu kingdom into a secular state.

This small South Asian nation sandwiched between giants India and China is a multicultural marvel, officially recognising 59 indigenous or ethnic groups, not counting the various caste groups established by Hindu tradition. Many indigenous people have long lobbied for a secular state that would respect their religions, languages and other cultural rights.

Those people are also arguing that 50 percent of seats in a planned constituent assembly, and any future elected state bodies, be set aside for women, said Sherpa. “The 33 percent (in the House proposal on women) will benefit only the so-called high-caste women, who already have political party affiliations. It doesn’t address indigenous and other women who have been marginalised for years.”

The constituent assembly is supposed to draft a new constitution that should decide the fate of the hereditary monarchy. King Gyanendra alienated many Nepalis after he assumed the throne in 2001 following the “palace massacre” of his brother King Birendra and other family members. Today, calls for a republic ring out at public gatherings across the country.

The king made no public statement on Tuesday’s proposal and has rarely been seen in public since he relinquished power.

Minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare Urmila Aryal told state-run Radio Nepal on Tuesday that the government would act swiftly to implement the letter and spirit of the approved resolution. “The government now has the duty to adopt laws to guarantee at least 33 percent women participation in state mechanisms, distribution citizenships by the name of mothers and curb domestic violence.”

One problem it faces is that the constitution itself promises equality but explicitly contradicts it on citizenship. Some legal experts say the supreme law will have to be amended first but since the revolution, many people in civil society and the legal community have argued that the constitution has been supplanted by the new ‘people’s government’.

Some activists have pointed out that the new government’s deeds do not accord with Tuesday’s pledge. For instance, Aryal, a junior minister, is the only woman in the cabinet. Also, neither the government nor the Maoist rebels named a woman to their teams that this week launched preliminary peace talks.

In recent years, Nepal’s Supreme Court has passed many laws aimed at ending women’s discrimination. Among them, abortion was made legal and the now uncommon practice of forcing women to live in huts outside the family home during menstruation was outlawed..

But such laws made little difference in the villages that house more than two-thirds of the population, activist Durga Sob told IPS in an interview, last year. ”For the activists these decisions are good – they’ll be able to claim their rights. But those who are backward or living in remote areas will not benefit.”

Lack of information is a big problem added the president of the Feminist Dalit Organisation (FEDO) based in Kathmandu. Dalits are also known as ‘untouchables’ or ‘lower castes’ in Hindu tradition.

Added Sob: ”Dalit women (20 percent of all Nepal’s women) are uneducated, illiterate and unaware, as well as discriminated against. It’s difficult to deliver information about these decisions and women’s rights to the community level.”

The FEDO president was not available for an interview Wednesday. But Meera Dhungana of the Forum for Women, Law and Development, a group that actively fights for women’s rights, told ‘The Kathmandu Post’ that the resolution was at least a first step: “The state has now acknowledged women as its own citizens.”