NEPALI WOMEN AND RIGHTS

Nepali Women's Don't have Equal Rights
Nepali Women's Life
Nepalese women are said to be doing all the house works, feeding kids, cleaning the house, taking care of the live stocks and domestic animals, washing dishes, and doing laundry. Men don't do dishes and don't do laundry. She also takes care of husband's mother, brothers and sisters. In many cases her works are never rewarded, everyone complains, the kids, husband, and the husband's mothers and sisters. While life's all decisions are made by Nepali man, she goes about her daily monotonous life, in her home and backyard, she works harder then men and she dies earlier. Did you know that Nepal is the only country in the world where Women's life expectancy is shorter than men?
Work and Education
Girls in Nepal work twice as much then Boys. Women's literacy is about 27% while men's literacy is 63%. The median age at marriage is 16.1 years for the women and rural women getting married one year earlier than the urban ones. The median age at first birth is about 20 years and one in five adolescent women age 15-19 are already mothers or pregnant with their first child.

Nepali Women's Rights
Nepali Girl Trafficking
"The process of illegally recruiting, coercing, or moving a migrant or prohibited substances across national or state borders. Traffickers are the people who transport people and/or drugs and who profit economically or otherwise from their relocation. " by fairus.org Every Year hundreds of Nepali girls as young as 11 years are trafficked to India and other countries. Every year upto 7,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked into the red light districts in Indian cities. (Soma Wadhwa, "For sale childhood," Outlook, 1998). From villages innocent girls are lured into believing that they would be offered a job in cities like Kathmandu, then they eventually end up locked in brothels where they get locked up and she is used until she gets sick or has diseases like HIV, then she is dumped out of the brothels with no where to go. Most commit suicide, while some return back to Nepal to get help from some social organizations, while some go hidden in prostitution.
Girl's early marriage
Many of Nepalese girls are the victim of early marriage as early as 8 years old mostly in villages and in rural areas where parents give less education to daughters than sons and that they believe that girls are supposed to be doing household works. Early marriage is done so parents don't have to take care of their daughter and also do not have to spend money.
Dowry
Simply put, Dowry means wife's family gives money or assets to husbands' family during or before marriage. In Nepali dowry means daijo. Husband may get a car or a bike or a house or a land or money or any other assets as a daijo from wife's family. Wife may get a TV, washing machine, cooking utensils, money or just about any assets. Daijo is the assets brought by wife to the husband's family. It may be given to her or to him. In rural areas dowry thrives while in cities its presence can still be felt in a lesser magnitude. Lots of poor families without their own financial assets get pulled in the holes of loans just to give dowry. Many commit suicide from financial burdens. Dowry in poor countries like Nepal means of acquiring high status. Often families paying hefty dowry gets a boost in his or her status. Education can wash away dusts of a society. Today, thousands of marriages takes place without dowry. One of the most popular marriage in Nepal is called temple marriage or a 'love marriage', where a couple appear before a holy temple and in front of a priest they get married and start a new life with nothing.
Women's Facts
* When It comes to getting into school and colleges, Nepalese women don't get same opportunity as that of males. Women's Literacy rate is 34%, which is about half of that of male.
* Since 1990, many Nepali women have been able to uplift their social life through efforts by the Government as well as many not for profit organizations working in the country. Since then, Nepal is able to setup and administer a separate Ministry that looks after Women's Development, Rights and Education - The Ministry is Called Ministry of Women Children and Social Welfare
* Nepal has certain school grades free with an aim to bring more children to school. However, extreme rural location of school and lack of basic infrastructure such as roads and bridges still remain problem for many children.
* In 1990, Nepalese women increased their role in village councils. Government thus allocated 20% seats for female at village ward level and continues to do so in other Government offices, party levels and so on.

Useful Resource(s)
* They Fought But For What - Nepal gave up believing in Kings, but then what has happened for the rest ? It's worth asking. A photo and links could say it all
* Ministry of Women - The responsible body for Women's Rights and Education in Nepal