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Lonely ladies
JUL 08 -
Widowhood is an inadvertent encounter in a woman’s life. The scriptures do not bestow any kind of inhuman practices that single women should experience. Still, in a patriarchal society, there is an unwritten transcript which reveals that women can never enjoy any independent identity of their own. They are looked after by the parents before their marriage, the husband after marriage and sons in their old age. This taking care is based on the social construction of gender that women are weak compared to men.
It is even worse when a woman becomes a widow. Discrimination against single women has followed a set pattern in conservative societies. Single women have been looked down upon and trapped within an unequal societal structure and deep-rooted cultural practices and religious framework that discriminates against them. Death of the husband is the start of a woman’s woes. A young single woman is often viewed as a rival, and the family often taunts her as being responsible for her son’s death. Their own parents try to provide emotional support and prefer that they stay in their marital home rather than bring them back. One of the biggest shocks that a single woman faces after the death of her husband is the whole question of support and shelter. Therefore, there is a need to analyse the fallacy imposed against single women and follow positive modern norms that help their self-empowerment.
Social change
A specific social change alone was not possible without the help of single women groups who are still struggling by different means to alleviate the trauma of single women. Being a pioneer organisation for single women, Women for Human Rights (WHR) has really achieved a lot in a brief span of time. They are the social change agents for single women and for society. In a patriarchal society like Nepal’s, change is a little harder and has to emanate from oneself at first; but this would not have been possible without WHR’s initiative and organisations like this.
Single women need social encouragement to build social awareness and change the mindset of the people towards them. They have to identify their own position in perpetuating patriarchy and to get over their distress so that they can pick up the threads of their life again in terms of taking up a career and bringing desirable change. The most important thing is that single women set a time and space to meet, organise and set free their own power and enjoy equal fundamental rights as all citizens. The way to all this is not far if single women groups move forward with full effort and hard work.
Post-conflict challenges
WHR in its 18 years of working experience has formed single-women groups in 300 VDCs in 54 districts which are running savings and credit programmes. Around 329 legal cases of single women concerning property rights, sexual harassment and rape, citizenship certificate, domestic violence, social ostracism and mistreatment have been solved by counsellors, para-legal volunteers and peace cadres in the district. Over 1,000 children of single women and young single women themselves have been provided scholarships to further their education. Skill development training has been provided to more than 12,000 single women, and among them, 8,000 are engaged in income generating activities.
Not only at the community level, WHR has also lobbied for and advocated changing various discriminatory legal policies; and it has succeeded in changing a number of discriminatory laws as follows:
· A single woman does not have to be 35 years to inherit property.
· They now have the right to retain the deceased husband’s property after remarriage.
· Conflict widows receive monthly allowances from the government irrespective of age.
· They now have the right to obtain a passport without male consent, and they can also sell or transfer ownership of property without the permission of adult children.
· Single women need not be 60 years old to qualify for allowances.
All the above mentioned laws were changed after strong lobbying by single-women groups. The government of Nepal has also come up with a monetary incentive of Rs. 50,000 to encourage remarriage of single women in Nepal. Since these types of provisions violate the fundamental rights of single women, there were strong protests and campaigns against it; and as a result, this policy has been changed and is not in practice anymore. These kinds of laws do not help to improve the lives of single women, but bring more negative results in society. Initiatives like these reduce structural problems in society and there is a great need to work in this direction.
Conclusion
Refinement of the structural injustices against women and children is one way to provide them social justice. A just order at the local and national levels provides a sense of safety, trust and confidence in the victims in the future. To prevent a repetition of the horrors of the past, counselling training, healing initiatives, positive discrimination in favour of women victims, especially in employment, education, health, housing, compensation programmes and creative engagement, are important considerations as they serve justice to women victims and inter-generational justice to their children. Additionally, an important point is to address capacity building training to other humanitarian and developmental work so that transitional justice can provide a solid framework for social cooperation and peace.
Capacity building training becomes unproductive as long as the inhuman cycle of violence and impunity remains unbroken. Confidence in the future can improve the spirits of the people if the mistakes of the past are corrected, justice is done and positive relationship building is developed within a period of time for an “equal share” of social power by single women. Given the socially diverse nature of Nepali society, it is equally important to craft development programmes that can strengthen cross-community relationships and grant them a sense of ownership in the institutions of governance.
(Paudel is associated with
Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which
works in the area of democracy, trade union, media and gender)
Posted on: 2010-07-09 08:51
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