NEWS AND FEATURES ON THE SOLIDARITY 2000 CAMPAIGN IN COPENHAGEN

Nepal

Nepal
Rich-Poor Gulf Stays, Despite Big Spending

Still a Long Way to Catch Up With Men

By Ramyata Limbu

KHUMJUNG, Nepal, June 2000 (IPS) - At an age when most of her friends are happy playing with small grandchildren, 64-year-old Tsering Doma Sherpa keeps house, tends her potato farm and attends meetings in this village, located in a valley high up in the Nepal Himalaya.

Sometimes, she goes to the small town of Lukla, a day's walk away, to board a small plane that takes her to the national capital Kathmandu to speak at seminars on women's issues. Tsering is much in demand as a guest speaker at such conferences because she is a rare example in a country where women are still treated as second class people, not just by a male-dominant society, but also the nation's rulers.

One of the handful of local woman representatives from Nepal's eastern district of Solukhumbu that is home to the world's highest mountain, she owes it all to her few years in school. "Oh, it was so many years ago. I was one of three girls among a group of about 40 boys who attended a tiny school. Back then, people used to ridicule my parents for sending me, a girl, to school. It wasn't the done thing,'' says Tsering.

She has seen some change in the four decades she has lived in Khumjung that is just 24 km from the foot of Mount Everest and surrounded by forests of pine, fir, juniper and rhododendron. ''Many more girls attend school today, they complete high school and attend college,'' she says. But some things still remain the same.

Women still do the bulk of work. They keep house, gather fuel and fodder, look after children, harvest potatoes, gather water and drive yak herds. ''During (the mountaineering) expedition season, when the men are off in the mountains, the load doubles for the women,'' says Tsering.

Things are not much different for women elsewhere in this mainly rural nation of nearly 23 million people that is rated among the world's poorest, with a per capita annual income of less than 200 U.S. dollars.

According to statistics compiled by the government and U.N. development agencies, Nepal is still a long way from keeping its international obligation to reduce the wide gap between the sexes.

The promise to ''achieve equality and equity between women and men'' was made at the landmark March 1995 World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen that brought together 117 Prime Ministers and Presidents, besides senior government ministers from 69 other nations.

It was the highest level global political commitment to tackle poverty, joblessness and social tensions. Denial of equal access to education, nutrition, health care and legal protection to women is said to be one of the biggest hurdles to efforts to push Nepal toward Summit goals. There are twice as many boys as girls in primary schools.

Only half the students complete the first five years of education. Far more girls drop out than boys, pulled out by parents to look after small siblings, help in housework or go out with their mothers to collect fodder, fuel of water.

This is why less than a fifth of the women in the country can read and write. In sharp contrast, more than half the Nepali men are literate. The deep-rooted social bias against the female gender, is also blamed for starving girls of their share of nourishment at home. Underfed girls grow up into unhealthy women who give birth to underweight babies with poor chances of survival.

According to UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates, for every 1,000 children born in Nepal, 100 die before the age of five. Seventy two out of every 1,000 children born, do not survive till their first birthday.

Nepal also has one of the world's highest maternal mortality levels. Official estimates show that on average, 539 out of 100,000 pregnant women die during childbirth. However, new estimates by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF show the maternal mortality ratio to be nearly three times as much.

The poor state of rural basic health services, specially emergency obstetric care, is a major reason for the high maternal mortality level. While admitting that social attitudes cannot be changed overnight, those campaigning for equal rights for women slam the government and legal system which they say reflect the same mindset.

All the more since Nepal is a signatory to the global treaty to ensure equal treatment to women. Kathmandu had ratified, without reservation, the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1991. This obliges the government to do away with discriminatory laws and practices.

Yet, women's rights activists, point out several examples of such laws that are still in force. One of these denies equal inheritance rights to daughters. A woman has to be over 35 years old and unmarried, to be eligible for an equal share of parental property.

Despite a ruling by the apex court that confers legal status on single mothers, such women cannot register the birth of their children. There are various other laws relating to child adoption and marriage that do not treat men and women in the same way. ''The main problem is that people don't regard women's rights as human rights,'' says Sapana Pradhan Malla, Coordinator of the Forum for Women Law and Development.

The Forum believes that legal discrimination against women persists with respect to criminal punishment, abortion, rape and other family laws. The critics say that affirmative action programmes for improving the status of women exist only on paper. Those monitoring Nepal's record in bettering the lot of its women, however, see signs of hope.

They cite the example of women workers of the Dhaulagiri Community Resource Development Centre, in Baglung, western Nepal, who make up more than half the NGO's workforce, yet were denied the chance to hold senior positions in the organisation. Says 27-year-old Saraswoti K.C. one of them: ''We began to question - women have always been good workers in the field but why haven't we become programme chiefs, why don't we hold major positions.''

To tackle this, the women set up a separate women's section within the Centre. ''We can now express or state our needs. Before, we would keep quiet,'' says Saroswoti. The women are now demanding 60 days of maternity leave as opposed to the established 30 days.

''They certainly have improved their status within the organisation,'' says Nina Lauritzen of the Nepal office of the Danish Association for International Cooperation, MS, who has been working in this country for the past three years. ''Initially, the women would never look at you face to face. Today, they can state their opinions.

Of course this creates a bit of tension when things happen. But how can you mobilise social change without tension?,'' Lauritzen points out. However, according to the Danish NGO representative, the gulf between the present status of women in Nepal and what it should be, is like that between ''the moon and the earth.''

The Danish NGO is now trying, in a small way, to give new confidence to Nepali women. As part of this effort, a group of eight women chosen from five local NGOs will travel to Denmark later this year. During their five-week stay in Denmark, the Nepali women will visit social institutions working in the areas of human rights, gender and social development.

''We've always had gender as a cross cutting issue. We've set up a policy making group to develop a policy on gender,'' says Eigil L. Rasmussen, MS Nepal Resident Representative, adding, ''it's not easy. But it's necessary.''