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What about us?
APR 30 -
Saluting the dedication of Nepali women to work, I thought of highlighting some of the cases I closely witnessed, with a sincere hope that we will be able to work out certain solutions to their problems amid the usual rhetoric and fanfare of this year’s May Day celebrations.
Case I: I was privy to a side-talk while choosing tomatoes at a Lagankhel market some days ago. Another roadside vendor was telling the lady I was buying tomatoes from, “Heard that there will be a great gathering on May 1 and tea and snacks will be offered to participants.” My vendor furiously replied, “I will not go. Last time, despite their promise of providing snacks to rally-goers, they did not even ask for water. I went to Tundikhel walking all the way from Lagankhel in that sunny day, and got nothing for it. Rather, I lost out on some earnings that I could earn selling my vegetables”.
Case II: Sambriddhi was a middle-level officer at a national ‘Class A’ commercial bank. She graduated with distinction and landed a dream job of a bank executive following a rigorous and competitive selection procedure. She did very well as a management trainee, the position she was offered as a new entrant. Although born and brought up in Kathmandu and not so comfortable being outside the Valley, she happily accepted the bank management’s request to transfer her to their Dhangadhi branch. While calling from Dhangadhi, she never complained about her job and said that she really enjoyed it. Though she admitted missing her family a lot as this was the first experience being alone away from the family. Thanks to a nationwide management reshuffle and her excellent performance, six months later she was called back to the Kathmandu headquarters. It seemed as if the grace of the gods was being showered on her when she was told that she had a marriage proposal from a foreign-educated physician. At 28, such an offer appeared too hard for her to decline. A year later, her spouse got a job offer from Indonesia. Then, the hunky-dory situation started turning nastier everyday as the couple started arguing day in and out on the future of her career. Giving in finally to the family’s pressure to save her marriage, she resigned and left for Jakarta a year ago with her husband. The emails we receive from her ever since she left reveal her state of frustration.
Case III: Both Bimala and her husband were working as officers in separate private companies based in Kathmandu. The career graph of Bimala came to a sudden halt along with the great news of the birth of their first daughter. It happened because her conscience did not allow her to leave the prematurely-born baby with the hired babysitter post her maternity-leave period. Then surfaced the usual question of who among the two would give in, and she followed the sacrificing suit of countless fellow women for the sake of the family and quit the job.
Case IV: Kali—the name given by her landlords—can be seen around the premises of a local landlord in Biratnagar from as early as 6 am until 8 pm everyday, doing a variety of activities ranging from milking cows; collecting grass for them; sweeping and cleaning the bungalow interiors and periphery; planting, watering, pruning and weeding plants in the kitchen garden; washing clothes; cooking; doing the dishes; making beds; arranging closets; and all other possible household chores. In return, the landlord has allowed her and her family to stay free in a shed-like partitioned shelter which would hardly fetch more than Rs. 1,000 if rented out.
The above cases find their roots in the issues concerning women’s work situations in Nepal—such as women’s limited access to resources like land, credit, information, etc—that emanate from prevalent patriarchal norms; underreporting and/or ‘invisibility’ of women’s economic activities as the majority of them are engaged in subsistence agriculture or menial jobs in informal sectors; lack of bargaining power due to deprivation of opportunities; ever-increasing work burden without proportional increase in rewards; difficult environments for working women—for instance, lack of child care facilities at workplace; and rampant physical and emotional exploitation and impunity to perpetrators of such abuse.
Family customs in Nepal governing marriage, divorce, property rights and the entire gamut of activities a woman supposedly undertakes throughout her life reinforce the patriarchy. These not only severely limit their access to and control over productive resources but also jeopardise their decisions often at a huge cost to their personal well-being. Although several empirical studies have argued that women’s pay is directly related to their children’s food intake, nutritional status and overall well-being of their immediate families, majority of them are underpaid compared to their male counterparts for a comparable set of duties.
The situation acknowledged by the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, is still valid for many developing countries including Nepal. It was agreed during the Conference that most women’s work was unremunerated, such as caring for children and older people, community activities, preparing food, protecting the environment, providing voluntary assistance to vulnerable people, etc. These activities are not measured in quantitative terms and subsequently not reflected in the national records, thereby downplaying women’s contribution to development and economic growth seriously. That explains why, despite being at the core of the agricultural workforce of Nepal, their contribution to national yield and to the Gross Domestic Product is largely underreported.
Although these real-life stories have different characters representing different social strata, all of them point towards a common and urgent need: recognition and respect. Hence, the foremost need in terms of meeting the needs of half of the labour force of Nepal, i.e., women, is to ensure the respect they deserve. If any initiative is launched towards that end this May Day, we would have honoured the hardworking women of Nepal in a true sense!
upadhyay_b@yahoo.com
Posted on: 2010-05-01 09:55
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