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Nepali Women face different degrees of discrimination Dalit women are doubly disadvantaged

Nepali Women do not constitute a homogenous group. Therefore, the issues they confront and the degrees of discrimination they face vary by caste and ethnicity. It has been observed that women belonging to indigenous groups have greater rights within the private sphere and therefore a greater say in matters relating to their health and sexuality than women belonging to higher castes. A report prepared from non-governmental sector illustrates the fact that there were more higher caste women in prison on charges of abortion/infanticide than women from any other social groups. It has also been noted that women from ethnic groups do not face as much difficulties as women of high-caste group when it comes to their mobility.

“It depends on an individual family, but normally we are easily allowed to go anywhere whereas our friends belonging to higher caste groups have to explain in detail about where there are going,” said Rashmee Sunuwar, at Nepalgunj. The seventeen-year-old woman believes that this has helped women in lower caste group become independent to some extent. But stating that lower caste women are more likely to become victim of domestic violence and other kind of social crime she argues, “Perhaps this very liberty has made women in lower caste group vulnerable to several kinds of crime.”

Observers say that women from indigenous groups face greater economic and political disadvantages than women belonging to higher castes. Indigenous women indeed are doubly disadvantaged. First, just because they are women and second, because they belong to either dalit or other groups, who are facing other social discrimination from higher caste people. Consider this: “One of my friends, who belongs to the Bahun caste, asked me to help her while she was taking bath at the public tap.

Unfortunately, her mother saw me applying soap on her back. Then we both were so badly scolded because people believed my friend had turned impure after I touched her that way,” says Saraswati Nepali at Khajura.

This was not all. Saraswati was regarded as the main culprit and not her friend just because she had no one to speak in her favor. She then had to face problems at her home too as all her family members believed they were untouchables and were not supposed to involve in such activities. Her mother-in-law scolded her for spoiling their social relationship in the village. “This is unfair, but people don’t understand,” she admits.

Women in Nepal experience extreme forms of gender discrimination throughout their entire life. One of the fundamental principals of patriarchy is preference for sons; the existence of which as a social norm has resulted in the neglect of women’s needs from childhood. With continuous neglect of young girls’ basic needs, the female infant and child mortality rate is significantly higher than that of male children. Primary school enrollment is much lower for girls than boys and drop out rates are higher among girls than boys in rural areas. These disparities are attributable to a range of factors, including higher workload consisting of household chores, the need to provide care for siblings and share the parents’ workload in farm work.

The vulnerability is heightened by the tradition of early marriage. It is reported that some 44 per cent women get married by the age of 19. Limited access to education, an excessive workload and early marriage combine to severely limit women’s opportunities and quality of life. As a result, they are locked in a vicious cycle of oppression from a very early age. However, despite being members of the same society and sharing common social norms and values, women belonging to different caste-groups are discriminated in several different ways.

Suman Aryal (name changed) does not like to be named in the media as she does not want her parents to know that she is unhappy because of their unnecessarily over-cautious treatment. She is doing her Masters’ degree at the University of Pune, India far from her home in Kathmandu. She gets irritated when her parents insist her not to hang around with her friends in her free time. She also gets irritated when she hardly gets permission from her parents to travel alone. Her father comes to receive her every time she visits home in holidays and also goes to leave her to the University when it’s time to go back.

The problem, however, is not of her parents becoming careful about her. According to Aryal, her brother too studies aboard but unlike in her case, the parents never accompanied him whenever he traveled. “My point is, if he can travel alone, why can’t I. I would say this, a kind of discrimination, which does not let a woman to take bold steps when necessary,” she elaborated, “Believe it or not, such discriminations always create obstacles in women’s independent career development. She will remain dependent on her parents and never gain confidence when the time comes to prove her ability.”

But the other side of the story is different. Her mother believes that “daughters are soft and weak naturally” and if they face any kind of difficulties they panic more than the sons. “I don’t want my daughter to face such problem so her father goes to leave her to University though she is now grown up,” she said. She believes that discrimination should not be done while rearing them but sometimes such kind of “positive discrimination” is necessary. “Daughters have equal right to parental property, healthy and hygienic food and, of course, education but they should be taken care of more properly than sons as they are more delicate than any male,” she elaborated.

It is appalling that rural women face even worse forms of discrimination. “It is a mean practice that daughters are deprived of even good food that adversely affects their health,” Parashuram Yadav, a teacher at Kapilbastu told us. According to him, daughters are regarded as burden before marriage among all caste groups in his village. But owing to better economic status, women in higher-caste groups don’t face discrimination when it comes to the matter of getting healthy food at least. “Discrimination in any form either positive or negative is “discrimination”, and it always hampers women’s sound career development,” say experts.

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