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Contemporary Status Of Women In Nepal
By KTM Metro Reporter
October 6, 2012: the dissolved constituent assembly had 33 per cent women in Nepal and it is one of the few countries in the world to recognize the rights of the gay community and to have a women's cell in the Prime Minister's Office. A raft of progressive legislation, including a law to address domestic violence, is now in place. But amidst these glimmers of social transformation and hope, the landlocked Himalayan-Terai country continues to be weighed down by a deeply gender-unequal feudal legacy and steadily rising levels of violence against women and children, according to the news article on huffingtonpost.com.
A recent study by an international NGO called Action Aid in the Siraha district in Nepal revealed 18 cases of women having been accused of witchcraft, branded with hot irons and fed excreta. Such women have no real recourse to justice. Only two cases out of those 18 even got registered in the police records. There was the recent well-known case of Suntali Dhami: a woman police officer gang-raped by six of her own colleagues. Three of them walked free after being presumed innocent because they had not consumed alcohol.
Sapana Pradhan Malla: a feminist lawyer and politician referred to new forms of violence emerging in contemporary Nepal including the rising number of honor killings and the decrease in the sex ratio. As a member of the Constituent Assembly, Malla had struggled to bring a women's rights perspective to the constitutional framework. She revealed how the word "patriarchy", for instance, found its way into the draft constitution after a unanimous consensus was achieved on it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vday/nepal-rising-in-the-himal_b_1943008.html
