Nepali women till the land; the men own it
In Kathmandu valley, it is the women, not the men, who are working in the paddy fields during the monsoons.
The men having gone to the capital in search of work, leaving the women to plant rice, maize and corn, and later to harvest the crops. The ladies also tend to the livestock, and haul water and firewood from the thinning forests nearby.
This is not just the situation in the Kathmandu valley; it is true of all Nepal. Yet women are considered inferior to men by the government and the patriarchal Nepali society. And despite their important contribution to family income, parental property is handed down to the sons, never the daughters.
The South Asian Human Development report released earlier this year, says women in this mountain country make up 40 per cent of the nation's labour force and contribute 32 per cent of all income. But gender disparities are still among the worst in South Asia, with the gender disparity beginning at birth: there are only 96 women to every 100 men.
In Nepal's villages and towns, daughters are the last to be sent to school and the first to be pulled out to help in work around the house. Though mothers and daughters share the burden of house work. It is the men in the family who inherit property.
Recently the glaringly discriminatory inheritance provisions in Nepal have come under increasing flak from human rights activists and women's groups. Thanks to their effort, the issue is now on the political agenda, and in newspapers for the last couple of years.
'"Our society is blatantly biased in favour of song. Daughters are being treated as second class citizens. This is something we cannot tolerate any longer," says lawyer Gita Sangrauga of the Institute of Legal Research and Resources, a legal activist group. "The issue is not equal right to parental property alone, but of women's empowerment Nepali women will continue to suffer unless the issue is addressed squarely."
At the heart of the debate lies the all-encompassing Muluki Ain, or country code, which way enacted 34 years ago which forms the legal basis for just about anything in Nepal. It mandates that all parental property be divided equally among sons. Daughters can inherit their share only if they remain unmarried till the age of 35; if they do marry later, the property has to be returned to their brothers.
Women's activists say the provisions in the code are in direct contravention to the nation's new democratic constitution which was promulgated in 1990, and which bars official discrimination on the basis of sex, religion and race.
"We have a democratic constitution which bars discrimination on the basis of sex," says Indu Tuladhar. general secretary of Inhured International, a non-governmental organisation.
"Yet Nepali women are still unable to enjoy many of the rights enshrined in the constitution," she says.
The government is putting the issue on a backburner because it concerns women's rights, she says, "Our government has also signed several international human rights conventions that bar such policies. But nothing has been done on the ground to end their implementation."
Due to pressure exerted by right activists, the government last year agreed to amend the code to give unmarried daughters the right to parental property. The ministry for women and social welfare, which drafted the amendment, registered the document for debate in the winter session of parliament.
But since then, precious little has happened. The amendment draft is still stuck in a bureaucratic maze. And looks likely to remain there. Besides, political parties have also not been forthcoming with their support for fear of alienating vote banks, Nepal is not yet ready for such radical ideas, they say.
Says parliamentarian Jay Prakash Gupta of the opposition Nepali Congress, "In principle we support the demand for equality, but out society is very different from western societies. There is a danger that our social fabric will be broken if daughters are allowed to share in parental property. We have to be very practical. I do not see a necessity for such provisions right now."
"We still need to look more into the issue and come up with a scientific method which does not harm our social structure," says Communist (United Marxist-Leninist) party spokesman Yubaraj Gyawali. "The present composition of Nepali society ensures that the equal property rights bill will not be appropriate at
the moment."
But women's groups are not budging, and want the government to change the law to give all women a right to parental property. The amendment is inadequate, they point out.
All the government has done in the proposed amendment is to delete the 35 years a daughter must remain unmarried to inherit parental property. But they have not removed the provision which mandates that daughters must return parental property if they marry at a later age, says Sangraula. "This is not what we want. We want total equality."
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