Nepali Girls problems: – Nepal is a country where women have managed to come beyond the four walls of their house and work for their living on their own. Nepalese women have definitely proved themselves not only as good housewives but also as successful professionals.
In a country where people follow orthodox views that males are superior and dominant, women have been trying to prove the stereotype wrong. All thanks to education and awareness.
But in return, has the country been able to provide a safe shelter for the women? Has the country been able to provide equal career opportunities to women in comparison to men? I suppose not yet.
The following practices and acts need to be eliminated before we say girls and women of Nepal are safe.
Nepali Girls :- 25 Critical Problems That Girls in Nepal Are Facing
1. Nepali Girls Are Facing Gender Inequality
At first, Nepal has been a male dominated society with deeply rooted traditional values. Boys were considered a boon whereas girls as a curse. Education to girls was not preferred.
Gender inequality was prevalent. In fact, the discrimination occurred from the time a child was in the womb. The high abortion rate was the witness of such differences. (Evidence)
Slowly with the help of awareness, girls started attaining education. In comparison, more girls are educated in present than in past. However, after completion of their education, they are not provided an equal platform to showcase their talent.
Is Nepal a patriarchal society? What are the effects of gender inequality? What are the reasons for gender inequality? Want to get answer of these questions? Here are Gender Inequality in Nepal with Problems, Reasons, Solution
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2. Nepali Girls Are Facing Physical Relation Assault
Physical Relation assault has always been a crucial issue in Nepal. When physically assaulted, the girls have to face devastating consequences where they are hurt emotionally as well as physically.
In the past, being raped signified a girl as being impure. The narrow mind-set of society and limited perception of the people failed to create an open environment for the girls to fight against the dreadful incident.
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As a result, many cases remained unfiled. If focused on the present, rape is still prevalent and safety of women is still not guaranteed. According to a report on 2013, 30 rape cases were filed in an interval of 3 months in Nepal. (Evindence)
3. Girls Trafficking
Young girls and women in a hope of good life try to move out from Nepal to the foreign land. The result: they fall into the trap of trafficking. These innocents are sold mainly in India, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia where they are forced into prostitution.
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However, after education and awareness, trafficking was supposed to be minimized. But, shockingly, flesh trade is still prevalent and women are still sold in the foreign land. For more information girls trafficking in Nepal, please visit the given link.
A recent incident that attracted the eye of human rights organization and the country was of two Nepalese women sold through the channels of trafficking agents to Saudi Diplomat who were later exploited and abused. (Evidence)
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4. Nepali girls are facing Domestic Violence
The safest place for a girl is her home. But what happens when inhumane activities start from the home itself?
Domestic violence has been prevalent in Nepal from the past. Women were physically injured or abused. They were the victims of marital rape and forced prostitution. Whereas girls were molested and harassed. The shocking part was that the culprit was most of the times part of the same family. Such violence is prevailing till date.
A report by Informal Sector Service Center (INSEC) shows that total of 910 incidents was recorded. Half the number was domestic violence alone. Source:
5. Acid Attack
Last but not least, Acid attack has become a new trend among the criminals to harm girls. It was not prevalent before the mid-20th century. However, when such incidents occurred in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, Nepalese criminals got influenced which led to acid attacks in Nepal.
The recent acid attack on the two school girls symbolizes how unsafe girls are in Nepal. (Source )
6. Nepali girls are facing Dowry system
In Nepal, the custom of dowry is still common, and dowry-related violence stays as an issue, despite the fact that the dowry system has been banned in Nepal.
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In spite of the laws, episodes of abusive behavior at home identified with dowry continue, under a general impression of exemption. The practice of dowry is firmly identified with social prestige; and dowry violence is particularly prevalent in the Terai belt.
In some communities, similar to the Newar people, the dowry system was implied as a gift or blessing that would help the bride, in case she faced problems in the future. The dowry would be her wealth that she was allowed to sell or utilize on the off chance that she expected to begin a nuclear family.
So, the utensils and the money she got as dowry was to be kept independently under her own consideration until the critical moment showed up.
In any case with the growing influence of the other communities, under the caste system which is much the same as the one followed in India along with Nepal, the system has begun evolving.
What’s more, over the occasions, it has turned into a system that really puts more pressure on the family of the bride to satisfy the desires and expectations of the family of the husband to be.
This in turn debilitates the status of the woman in the family, rather than the first thought of fortifying it by giving her material help.
7. Early age marriage
Early age marriage is basic in Nepal. The act of marrying young girls is regularly determined by poverty, however its pervasiveness differs the nation over, contingent upon level of education, wealth, geographic location, religion, and ethnicity.
These marriages lead to pregnancy and birth at youthful ages, which frequently bring about health problems, for examples, uterine prolapse.
Beside the issues that emerge from the marriage itself, child widows are predominant too. These widows are viewed as witches and misfortune. They are compelled to apologize for their transgressions and wear white for the remainder of their lives.
Remarrying, general delight throughout everyday life, explicit foods, family occasions, looking at men without flinching, and in any event, venturing out from home are beyond reach to widows. This is explicitly observed as an issue for youngster widows since they basically give up their lives.
In spite of the fact that, child marriage is a part of Hindu culture, and numerous individuals see no issue with the training. A considerable lot of the youngster widows in Nepal endure misuse and injury during and after their relationships. The age contrasts among wife and husband to be are generally enormous.
In excess of 700 million women and youngsters on the planet were hitched before the age of 18.The uniqueness between men and women is obvious, with just 156 young men wedded between ages 15–18 contrasted and 720 million young ladies. Nepal makes the list of the best 10 nations with the most noteworthy paces of youngster marriage.
In Nepal, 30% of the young ladies aged somewhere in the range of 15 and 19 are hitched while 40% of Nepali ladies were hitched before they turned 18, as indicated by national statistics. Early age marriage disregards youngsters’ privileges and speaks to the most common type of sexual orientation based brutality, misuse and abuse of young ladies.
This regularly comes from the perception that young ladies are a burden to the family. It is likewise connected with the dowry system, wherein little girls who wed early require lower payments.
The bad results of early age marriage incorporate serious health risks, partition from family and friends, absence of opportunity to interface with peers and take an interest in community activities and decreased open doors for education. It can also result in bonded labour or enslavement, commercial sexual exploitation and violence.
8. Chhaupadi
Chhaupadi is one such social practice which has been in existence in the far- and mid-western part of Nepal that prohibits a woman from their house during their menstrual bleeding. This practice is gotten from a Hindu custom that identifies with secretions associated with menstruation and childbirth.
Under this practice, women are considered impure during their periods and are therefore prohibits a woman from participating in normal family and social activities. They are compelled to confine themselves and rest inside a little shed/cabin made up of mud and stones without windows and locks, generally known as Goth.
These huts are especially prepared 20–25 meters away from their own residential homes and are sized around 1×2 m. Such sheds lack doors, are very narrow, dark, tight and congested, and have cold dirty floors, where women sit and sleep.
Chhaupadi has a few wellbeing effects related with it. The bleeding ladies are compelled to suffer frigid temperatures in winter and sweltering temperatures in summer inside the Goth. This can cause hazardous medical issues like pneumonia, looseness of the bowels, chest disease, suffocation, and respiratory tract infection.
During those days in spite of the fact that woman are prohibited from going inside the house they are as yet expected to accomplish increasingly laborious work outside like carrying heavy loads, digging, gathering firewood and grass despite the absence of a nutritious eating routine and solace.
As an outcome, the pace of prolapsed uterus is high among this group. Even the mothers who have recently given birth are bound to Goth. Postpartum mothers are frail and weak and to make it worse, they need to take care of their newborn child without anyone else’s input.
Due to poor nutrition and vulnerable living conditions, neonatal and maternal mortality is high in those districts where Chhaupadi is common.
Chhaupadi additionally has an impact on psychosocial well-being of the women and young girls. Segregation from family and social rejection brings about sadness, low confidence, and debilitation among young ladies.
Moreover, there is additionally a fear of sexual abuse and assault around evening time close by the attack of wild creatures and snake chomps. Most of the deaths because of wild animals are not uncovered and nor are the instances of rape, dreading for the eventual fate of the unmarried daughter.
In spite of the fact that chhaupadi was outlawed by the Supreme Court of Nepal in 2005, the tradition is delayed to change. After a woman died in a Chauppadi hut in 2016, the government passed a law forcing punishment against those constraining ladies into the tradition, going into impact in August, 2018.
9. Nepali girls are facing Witch hunts
Witch-hunts in Nepal are common, and are focused on particularly against low-caste women. It is also a common form of gender-based violence in Nepal. In a society strongly rooted in spirituality, misfortune is thought by some to be caused by spirits and spells, and someone has to be blamed for invoking them.
The main causes of witchcraft related brutality incorporate across the board faith in superstition, lack of education, lack of public awareness, illiteracy, caste system, male domination, and monetary reliance of women on men.
The victims are vulnerable women: widows or ladies whose spouses are away, the old, those who are amazingly poor or belong to low rank, or the individuals who challenge the traditional patriarchal society.
The casualties of this type of brutality are frequently beaten, tormented, freely embarrassed, and killed. Some of the time, the family members of the accused are additionally assaulted.
In 2010, Sarwa Dev Prasad Ojha, minister for women and social welfare, stated, “Superstitions are profoundly established in our general public, and the faith in black magic is one of the most exceedingly awful types of this.
The persecution and killing of women for the sake of practicing witchcraft is still predominant in Nepal. Most of the witchcraft charges in Nepal depend on reasons like making individuals or animals debilitated, casting a spell on food or beverages and making children sick.
Diseases spread through epidemics are additionally said to be identified with black magic. Most of the allegations are trailed by beating of the victim in question and driving the individual to consume human excrement. Sometimes the victim is beaten to death.
INSEC Nepal reports 52 instances of witchcraft allegations in the year 2012. The number of allegations is a lot higher than these figures the same number of cases stay unreported.
10. Rape
An act of non-consensual sexual intercourse. This can incorporate the intrusion of any piece of the body with a sexual organ as well as the attack of the genital or butt-centric opening with any item or body part.
Rape and endeavored rape include the utilization of power, danger of power, as well as intimidation. Any penetration is viewed as assault. Endeavors to assault somebody which don’t bring about entrance are viewed as endeavored assault.
Rape of women is frequently utilized as a weapon of war, as a type of assault on the adversary, embodying the success and debasement of its ladies or caught male warriors.
It might likewise be utilized to rebuff ladies for violating social or good codes, for example, those disallowing infidelity or intoxication openly. Ladies may likewise be assaulted when in police authority or in jail.
Rape/attempted rape may include:
- Rape of an adult female
- Rape of a minor (female), including incest
- Gang rape, if there is more than one aggressor
- Marital rape, between husband and wife
It is common problems faced by Nepalese girl.
11. Nepali girls are facing Forced divorce
It is hard to get a divorce in Nepal. Lawful changes have made it feasible for a lady to separate from her better half and still keep some of the property, and even to pick up guardianship rights.
In any case, such court cases are extensive and costly. It commonly takes numerous months to get a separation case through court if the lady makes any sort of property or guardianship claims.
Much more badly than the time and money required to get a separation is the social disgrace put on a divorced lady. Numerous ladies are so unnerved of being shunned from their societies if they get a separation that they will suffer years of abuse instead.
12. Sexual abuse
Any certifiable or endeavored maltreatment of a place of weakness, differential power or trust, for sexual purposes, including, anyway not obliged to, profiting monetarily, socially, or politically from the sexual abuse of another.
Sexual abuse is the genuine or compromised physical interruption of a sexual sort, regardless of whether by power or under inconsistent or coercive condition. Studies in Nepal indicate that a solid patriarchal element lies at the core of Nepalese society being supposedly at the base of sexual exploitation of girls.
Twelve percent had encountered sexual viciousness at least once since Forty-three percent of ladies experience inappropriate behavior in the working environment. Women who are utilized for money are bound to have at any point experienced sexual brutality 18 percent than jobless or ladies utilized however not for money 11 percent each.
Ladies who are separated, isolated, or bereaved are bound to have at any point experienced sexual savagery 22 percent than at present wedded ladies 15 percent and never-wedded ladies 2 percent. Country ladies are to some degree bound to have encountered sexual savagery 13 percent than urban ladies 11 percent.
Among ever-hitched ladies, the present spouse is the most normally detailed culprit of sexual savagery 87 percent. Among all ladies, 3 percent have encountered sexual viciousness executed by a more bizarre and 2 percent by a family member.
13. Property rights
In Nepal, just 20% of ladies have some type of legitimate possession rights over land. Deprivation of land rights is synonymous with neediness and disparity.
In 2012 the Government changed the law and today, there is a 30% rebate on the enrollment charge when the land is enlisted under the lady’s name. This brings a positive change. In a male centric nation like Nepal, access to land is principal to ladies’ strengthening.
Land rights achieve security, autonomy and certainty, which together empowers ladies to get dynamic in all social and political fields. Ladies’ responsibility for urges men to see ladies as equivalents, which is appeared to give ladies more basic leadership control in their families and decline aggressive behavior at home. Property rights cases are costly and very tedious.
The Interim Constitution 2063 of Nepal has a few arrangements to elevate the status of ladies.
The constitution says that a little girl can get equivalent parental property as child on the off chance that she asks, a child can separate from her husband and get half of his property, a child can secure citizenship for the sake of his/her mom, in each administrative office a 20% standard for female must be saved, and 33% of seats are safeguarded in parliament for ladies.
These endeavors are done with the goal that ladies can be in the standard legislative issues of the nation and be socially and monetarily solid.
14. Girl labour and education
Though child labor is illegal in Nepal, an estimated 1.6 million children between the ages of five and 17 years are in the work force. Around seventy five percent of them are under the age of 14, and most are young girls.
Youngster laborers are an incessant sight on Kathmandu’s lanes, in the case of cleaning dishes in nearby restaurants, cafes or making a living as hired callers on the city’s public vehicle. Many have worked in the carpet brick and garment businesses, or in private homes as domestic workers.
Child labour is a large black mark upon Nepalese society. Over 25% of girls work every day, as opposed to 17% of boys, since the latter represent a family’s future and are thus usually enrolled in school. The individuals who work do as such to help their families’ needs, and they work in extremely perilous conditions.
Their obligations change by the activity: they could be garbage sellers, sweatshop laborers, maids, or weavers. They become vulnerable to many illnesses through their jobs.
15. Nepali girls are facing Deuki Pratha
Deuki is an old-fashioned only honed in the far western areas of Nepal in which a young girl is offered to the close by Hindu haven to build religious authenticity.
Young girls advance toward getting to be deukis either considering the way that their people offer them with desires for grabbing security and extraordinary help from the Gods or because their people pitch them to wealthier couples searching for a comparable great approval.
Poor families who present their young ladies get status and support from their gatherings from the obvious relinquish they have made. They are in like manner calmed of the heaviness of finding mates for their little girls.
In the wake of offering the young girls to the sanctuaries, neither guardians nor couples who got them give any cash related assistance or have additional contact with deukis.
Since they are seen as unfit for marriage and get no money from those that committed them to their sanctuaries, deukis need to depend on upon admirers’ financial contributions to the haven (sanctuaries).
Left with inadequate pay, no capacities or guidance, and weight expedited by the folkloric conviction that sex with a Deuki can wash down sins and bring favorable circumstances, various deukis are gone to endurance sex, a kind of prostitution where sex is traded for major necessities, for instance, sustenance or haven.
Because of the law expressing that Nepalese citizenship falls along the father’s line, little girls destined to deukis, known as Devis, much of the time can’t move toward becoming nationals of Nepal.
In spite of the fact that a legitimate change in 2006 makes it barely less requesting for deukis to get citizenship for their children in the event that they can show that the dad is Nepalese, matrilineal plunge stays unrecognized.
16. Nepali girls are facing Unsafe Abortion
An unsafe abortion is the end of a pregnancy by people lacking on the basic capacities, or in a situation lacking minimal medical standards, or both. An unsafe abortion is a perilous technique.
It incorporates self-instigated abortions, premature births in unhygienic conditions, and premature births performed by a medical expert who doesn’t give appropriate post-abortion consideration.
Unsafe abortions are likewise one of the leading causes of deaths during pregnancy and childbirth (around 5-13% of all deaths during this period). Most risky premature births happen where abortion is unlawful, or in creating nations where moderate and well-prepared therapeutic experts are not promptly accessible, or where modern birth control is unavailable.
Dangerous premature birth was and is a general wellbeing emergency. All the more explicitly, absence of access to safe abortion was and is a general health hazard. The more prohibitive the law, the higher the paces of death and different difficulties.
Unsafe abortion is a significant reason for injury and demise among ladies. An unsafe abortion can prompt wide scope of health risks that can affect the prosperity of woman.
The major and most dangerous inconveniences that come from risky premature births are contamination, hemorrhaging and damage to interior organs.
17. Superstitious belief
Superstitions are, actually, treated as convention as opposed to custom, to be passed on from one generation to the next. Superstitions are increasingly individual and are not compulsory.
They are typically blind belief, which are acknowledged without needing any proof. They are not social standards. They serve no practical purpose and are fairly critical in character.
There are numerous superstitions and taboos identified with caste and mensuration leading to discrimination of ladies. In these cases, they are not permitted to touch drinking water, need to live away from the house segregated while menstruating, can’t perform/go to religious exercises.
18. Lack of education for female
Female education has been disregarded in our nation since the earliest days. We find some disengaged instances of women’s education throughout the entire existence of our territory. Homes were viewed as the field of work for ladies and work in different fields of action.
“If you teach a man, you can teach an individual however if you teach a woman, you can teach the whole family,” goes an idiom. If women are educated they will impart their insight to everybody. They teach their kids and manage their homes all the more successfully.
If they are active and set a model for the kids and family, the eventual fate of her kids would be brilliant. The educated women can even afford a helping hand in their own business and give her family support and cheerful dispositions. In any case, the traditional role of a woman gets reformed and she becomes open minded and clear.
As per ongoing reports, the Nepal Living Standards Survey 2010-2011 (NLSS-III) has discovered that Nepal has an adult literacy rate of 56.6% with a gigantic variety among men and women.
While male proficiency rate is 71.6%, it is only 44.5% for ladies. This shows there is as yet a conviction among Nepalese individuals that young girls are constrained to go to schools.
19. Mental health problems
Mental health is shaped to a great extent by social, economic and ecological elements. Exposure to a scope of environmental adversities increases the danger of disorders in youngsters through the biological embedding of natural hazard.
Poverty, a lower social position in the public eye, war and exposure to violence in neighborhoods have all been appeared to have negative effects on the improvement of kid psychopathology.
Shockingly, a lot more youngsters and youths in Nepal are presented to such factors, and regularly more so than their friends in high income nations. For instance, practically half (41.6%) of all kids in Nepal are living under multidimensional destitution as estimated crosswise over health, education and living standards.
Youngsters from poorer backgrounds are probably going to have a more prominent exposure to child labour, abuse and human dealing trafficking.
Moreover, the changing family structure because of separation, detachment from joint family to family unit, parental disregard and parental substance abuse additionally put kids at a higher danger of psychosocial and psychological wellness issues.
20. Jhuma Pratha
Jhuma Pratha is one of the common conventions of Buddhists which is predominant uncommonly in the Himalayan Region of Nepal. This system is especially found in the eastern part of Nepal.
It is the system in which second young girl child is offered to the monastery. She spends entire time on earth in the monastery without marriage. The child conceived from the young girl becomes Lama of the Monastery.
The child offered to the monastery is deprived from parental love and is compelled to murder her longing and dreams. The attitude of the individuals that sons are unrivaled than the girls are empowering such customs.
This is like Deuki Pratha of Hinduism. Anyway it is somewhat not quite the same as Deuki Pratha. For occasions, just second girl is offered in Jhuma Pratha. Thus, a Jhuma can likewise get education in the event that she prefers.
21. Badi Pratha
The dependence on prostitution for a livelihood expanded after the 1960 plague in the hilly region that acquired more individuals to settle in these districts, getting more clients. While the interest for prostitution was expanding, the interest for singing and dancing diminished, along these lines making Badi ladies increasingly subject to prostitution.
Due to lack of education and access to the external world, Badi girls grow up discovering that prostitution is really a way of life for them. They become familiar with about sex and how to dress and act to draw in clients from different individuals from their locale, typically from their mom or a more seasoned sister.
Within a few months of arriving at menarche, Badi young ladies start prostituting themselves.
Their profession as prostitutes begins from an exceptional function called ‘Natthi Kholne’ (straightforwardly means opening the nose-ring) in which the customer gives the young lady adornments, garments and some cash before ravishing her.
22. Kamlari Pratha
The act of Kamlari started in Western Nepal. It is an arrangement of contracted subjugation wherein young ladies from desperately poor families are sold into domestic slavery.
In its modern form, young ladies and young girl are sold by their folks into obligated bondage under agreement for times of one year with more extravagant, higher-rank purchasers, for the most part from outside their towns.
The proprietors obligated the Tharu’s female youngsters to function as Kamlari and sent the young ladies to different parts of the nation, fundamentally Kathmandu.
It turned into a custom for Tharu families to send young ladies as youthful as five years of age to fill in as Kamlaris for a pitiful yearly total of about $50 and guarantees of an education, and in certain families a few ages of ladies had spent their childhoods as Kamlaris.
23. Kumari Pratha
The girl who is venerated is not permitted to go out of the temple where she is worshipped. A kumari who arrives at pubescence is supplanted by another. It is said that kumaries ought not to wed; they ought to stay alone for as long as they can remember.
A custom called Kumari Pratha (Kumari = a pre-pubertal virgin young lady) is broadly acknowledged in Kathmandu. A kumari is taken to be a living goddess, who is adored with a conviction that all wants will be satisfied by venerating her.
Kumari, or Kumari Devi, is the custom of loving youthful pre-pubescent young ladies as appearances of the perfect female vitality or Devi in South Asian nations particularly in Nepal.
Kumari which actually implies a Virgin young lady in a large number of the Asian dialects like Sanskrit, is a prepubescent young lady chosen from the Shakya clan of the Nepalese Newari people group. In Nepal the Kumari is revered by the Hindus in that part of the world and furthermore by the Nepali Buddhists.
24. Ghumto Pratha
According to the custom, Hindus married women should cover up their faces by the peaces of the dress because of other male individual or senior individual cannot look her.
Generally, Muslim girl should cover their face with a Burka (shawl), to conceal their entire bodies from men. Such customs hunt the mind and brain, emotion, health or nobility of women. This is a striking instances of gender discrimination. This practice have no justification. It is debilitated and finished at the earliest.
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Conclusion
So, why are girls facing such problems in Nepal till date? Is it because of the lenient laws or the mentality of people? Whatever the reason is, the consequence is tragic. It’s high time that people should act rather than react on such issues.
Girls who occupy more than half of the population deserve safety and security in the country they live and it is only possible to the combined effort of the citizens and the government. Awareness is to be raised with joint participation of all related authorities and proper implementation of rules need to be executed.
With Nilu Nepal
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