Polyandry In The Himalayas

From the China Post:

In ancient times, the sons of almost every family in the region of Upper Dolpa would jointly marry one woman but the practice of polyandry is dying out as the region begins to open up to modern life.

But polyandry prevents the practice of each generation of a family dividing their holdings, and food supplies just manage to cover the locals' basic needs.

Marriages are typically arranged, with a family picking a wife for their oldest son and giving the younger brothers the chance to wed her later.

In some cases the wives will even help raise their future husbands, entering into sexual relationships with them when they are considered mature enough.

Outrage Over Treatment of Violated Buddhist Nun

From the Times of India:

A 21-year-old Buddhist nun from Nepal, who was said to have "lost" her religion and become unfit to remain a nun after being gangraped, is now likely to be re-admitted to her nunnery, thanks to a growing outrage worldwide. The young woman, who is now battling for her sanity in a hospital in Kathmandu, can return to the Karma Samtenling Nunnery at Pharping after she recovers and is discharged from the hospital, an authoritative Buddhist body in Nepal said.

The Nepal Buddhist Federation distanced itself from a statement signed by over a dozen organisations, including one of its own officials, that had said the attack on the woman, while to be condemned, however had made her lose her "sheel" – religion as well as vows taken as a nun. It said the official's stand that the nun had become a "flawed vessel" was his personal view and not the official stand of the Federation.

"The Federation, in collaboration with our allied Association Tamang Lama Gedung Sangh and the concerned nunnery, is taking steps to accommodate her back into the nunnery when she recovers and discharged from the hospital," it said in a statement. "(It) will do everything in its power to help restore the dignity of the nun and continue to fight for justice."

Increase in Human Trafficking

From Thaindian News:

Every month at least 500 girls each are trafficked from Nepal and Bangladesh to India through the eastern corridor, and the figures are rising, says award-winning Kolkata-based documentary filmmaker Ananya Chatterjee-Chakraborty.

Chatterjee-Chakraborty has won the Ladli-United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) award for her 89-minute documentary on women and child trafficking, “Understanding Trafficking”. She will receive the prize from President Pratibha Patil May 11 in the capital.

“Some of these girls are sold to brothels while some are forced into farm labour. The best looking ones are sent to the Middle East. The next best category goes to Mumbai,” Chatterjee-Chakraborty, who is also a writer and teaches in St Xavier’s College, Kolkata, told IANS over telephone.

Interpol estimates say trafficking in women and children is a $1 billion global industry that continues to grow every year. Nearly 200,000 girls of Nepali origin work in Indian brothels.

Nepal Clinic For Women

From the Star:

The frail young woman looked too exhausted to nod her head when the counsellor explained the procedure to her. Behind her, perched on a slope in Nepal's high Himalayas, the medical tent beckoned. She followed a nurse inside, and was quickly scrubbed and draped for the operation that would change her life.

Waiting patiently under a tree was an emaciated elderly man cradling in his arms a year-old child. After his granddaughter's sixth baby, produced by the age of 26, he had watched her become weaker, sicker and more anemic from malnutrition and constant bleeding.

When the woman's husband refused to help, the grandfather quietly shouldered the youngest child, took the young woman's hand, and walked with her for two days over mountain passes to the internationally funded rural clinic that provided family planning, women's health care and the sterilization procedure that ensured she would not endure another debilitating birth. For Nepal's impoverished village women, with one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates and no access to birth control, it was a life-saving operation.

Nepal: V-Day

From Republica:

In V-day ´V´ stands for Valentine, Victory and Vagina. V-day is a renowned global movement to stop violence against women and girls including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sexual slavery.

To support this movement Eve Ensler´s award-winning play ´The Vagina Monologues´ is going to be staged by V-day Nepal at Nepal Academy Hall, Kamaladi on March 7, from 6 p.m. onward.

The event is a not-for-profit charity show. The funds generated by the event will be contributed to Biswas Nepal, a strong local group working against women and girls trafficking and abuse.

Nepal: Women & Witchcraft

From the Nepali Times:

In November Jug Chaudhary, a 30-year-old mother of four children, was beaten up by her family members and paraded naked around a village in Kailali. They dragged her out from her home, beat her mercilessly and then forced her to eat human excreta. Her mother-in-law's brother had just passed away. She had been accused of putting a spell on him that caused his death.

When Chaudhary's husband, a labourer in India, returned the couple went to the police station but could not file a complaint. "They said it was a personal matter, it should be solved in the community."

Five other women from Dalit and other minority communities in Lalitpur, Saptari, Siraha, Kailali, Sunsari and Makwanpur also speak at the forum. Each was branded a witch and humiliated in front of their communities. In each case the perpetrators have been let off the hook. Noone has come to apologise to the women for treating them like animals. They are awaiting justice, but living in fear of being targeted again.

Nepal's legal system does not have provisions to punish those involved in witch-hunts. If a complaint is filed and the guilty apprehended they are imprisoned for a short duration and slapped with a fine.

Witch-hunting is an extreme form of gender violence and the reason it is not taken seriously is because the victims are usually from marginalised communities. Nepal's gender movement has made amazing strides, but it has done little for this community of victims.

Activists in Kathmandu can push for laws against witch-hunting while those in the field can work to spread awareness against the medieval superstitions that target these women. The Nepal Police, too, needs to include a chapter on how to address crimes related to superstition in their training manuals.

Nepal: Women Priests

From China View:

As Nepal celebrates its biggest Hindu festival Dashain with devotees worshipping the goddesses of power, there is an additional cause for women to rejoice.

Traditionally, only men from the Brahmin community -- who were regarded to be at the top of Nepal's caste society -- were appointed as priests at Hindu temples.

But now, in a sign of the changing times, at least two temples in the former Hindu kingdom have now opened their doors to women priests -- and that too, from the Dalit community, is regarded to be at the bottom of the social hierarchy and still treated as untouchables in some villages.

Nepal: Human Trafficking

From Sindh Today:

Four Nepali women, three of whom were being trafficked to Muscat, have been arrested from Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur district, officials said here Sunday.

One of the four women was part of a human trafficking gang and she was taking the other three to Muscat. They were nabbed by the anti-human trafficking cell of the police from the railway station Saturday evening while they were headed to New Delhi, from where they were to take a flight to Muscat, an official said.

They were caught with the help of NGO Manav Seva Sansthan, which aids the police in curbing human trafficking.

A couple of months ago, police in Gorakhpur had arrested five Nepali women along with a pimp who was trying to send them to the Middle East.

Fate of Nepalese Girls

Extreme poverty is driving some rural families to the point of no return - they are selling the young daughters - some aged as young as 7yo - to wealthy families as domestic slaves.

However, one pioneering woman decided it was time for change ....

From San Francisco Chronicle:
Olga Murray "... asked the Tharu village fathers to keep their daughters home and send them to school instead of selling them at the annual Maghe Sakranti Festival every January. In exchange, families could raise the pigs and sell them for the same amount they could fetch for their daughters. Murray's nonprofit organization, the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation, also would pay for the girls' school expenses. Plus, it would kick in a kerosene lamp and 2 liters of kerosene a month - coveted items in an area without electricity.

It was an experiment based on Murray's understanding of Nepali culture after living there off and on for five years and sponsoring the education of orphans and street children. She knew pork is a prized meat and that for some families, selling a daughter was the only way to afford food for the rest of the family.

Of the 37 families she and her Nepalese counterpart Som Paneru approached that first year, 32 took the deal. Some asked for and received a goat instead of a pig.

Murray and Paneru have since steered 3,000 girls away from slavery and all but eradicated the long-held tradition of indentured servitude in the Tharu village.

Murray and Paneru have been so successful in Dang, they have started to bring their pigs-for-girls program to the neighboring district of Bardiya. Since January, they have liberated 500 girls there, Murray said.

Her foundation is putting 1,500 girls through school at an annual cost of $100 per student. The Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation also runs two boarding schools, one for boys and one for girls who are abandoned or disabled. So far they've been able to send 30 of their boarding school graduates to college."

Now - isn't that a good news story ....