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Image: Nepal photojournalist, Mikel Dunham |
Kathmandu: Kalli
Kumari B.K. is 45 years old and is a Dalit woman, an ‘untouchable.’
“On March 20, Kumari was accused of
practicing witchcraft by the villagers, and was mercilessly beaten up and
forced to eat her own excreta in public,” said the Asian Human Rights
Commission in an urgent April 2009 appeal letter to Nepal’s leading
legislators. During the incident the local police did not come to Kumari’s
aide. She was victimized by a teacher from Gadi Bhanjayang Primary School in the Lalitpur District near Kathmandu.
Dalit women are denied not once but three
times in Nepal society – as a woman, as a Dalit, and as a Dalit woman.
Discriminated by class, caste and gender they survive in spite of an often
cruel and dismissive society. In our 21st Century, in Nepal’s third millennium, if you thought that conflicts of
upper-caste and lower-caste were a thing of the past you’re wrong. Stories of
Dalit women cruelty are frequently found in Nepali news media. But it hasn’t
changed anything. Why?
“Over 20 percent of Nepal’s population is treated as ‘untouchable.’ They are
denied access to land, subject to exploitative labor and segregation, and
routinely abused and even killed by ‘upper-caste’ communities that enjoy
impunity. Their vulnerability is heightened in the current political climate in
Nepal,” said a 2005 New York University Office of Public
Affairs report.
My Reality – My Nepal
As a journalist, a Nepali, a woman and
mother, I sympathize deeply with the ongoing difficult conditions of Dalit
women. The sympathy is not because of their need for education, for human
rights, women’s rights or social margin, but because it’s very common to see
Dalit women in poor health with no access to medicine or a doctor’s advice.
It’s because of their bitter hardship, their political degeneration and severe
exploitation in Nepal.
In a dizzying array of 101 known castes and
sub-castes in Nepal, the Hindu religion is divided into four major and
vastly unequal sections: the Brahmans, the Chetri, the Vaisya and the
Sudra. Brahmans rank highest. Along with Chetris they are often wealthy,
occupying the most influential positions in Nepal. Middle class Vaisyas make up many of Nepal’s small business owners who carve out a living as
entrepreneurs. The unlucky Sudras are the lowest caste. But the lowest of the
low in Nepal are the Dalit.
Nepal’s Dalit community is large at 20% – almost four million
out of 28 million people in the country. 2 million, women make up half the
Dalit population. Rigid and unchanging in their thinking, many ‘privileged’
Nepalis still view these two million ‘female creatures’ as illiterate,
unemployed, landless, poor, naive, submissive, unhygienic or sick.
Limited access to clean drinking water in
Dalit homes has resulted in high rates of gastro-intestinal disease among
Dalits as they are forced to live in deteriorated structures with sewage
seeping into their water sources. Today the cost to the public healthcare
system in Nepal in the loss of Dalit lives and others has yet to be
charted.
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Woman in corner. Image: Nepal Photojournalist, Mikel Dunham |
Social and Religious Exclusion
Banned from sitting together within sight
of upper-castes in temples, from fetching water at public water fountains and
public sources, or even from sitting in certain teahouses or Kathmandu
restaurants; Dalit women in the city remain invisible as they work in the
shadows of the bustle of Kathmandu.
While they are tolerated by business owners
as steady hard-working, reliable workers, women laborers, like those who are
hired to paint or plaster family homes, are kept as far away as possible from
the ‘respectable’ families they serve. This is strictly because they are
‘untouchable.’ The separation can be so severe that Dalit workers are not
allowed inside a home for any reason.
Most of the stubborn traditionalists of Nepal society still believe that Dalits should never enter an
employer’s home kitchen. They also believe that their eating utensils should
never be touched by a Dalit. Because of this, some Dalits in Kathmandu
are expected to eat without utensils.
“The Prime Minister (of Nepal) announced
the prohibition of any kind of social discrimination based on caste, making
prohibition of entry into public places including places of worship or the
practice of untouchability a crime punishable by law,” stated the UN WCAR –
United Nations World Conference against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa in
2001.
Some improvements have been made, but many
things in Nepal still aren’t working. It comes down to this:
Discrimination is an ugly cultural stain that won’t go away easily.
Cheap Labor an Economic Boost?
Does cheap Dalit labor actually boost the
economy of Nepal? Some would say yes. While 31% of the total Nepali
population lives below the national threshold of poverty, 86% of Dalits, some
3.4 million people, live far below the poverty line. Economists would say this
is a disaster for a national economy.
Nepal women street sweepers, stone quarry workers, garment and
crop workers work just as hard as men to earn a living, but they receive very
little in return in comparison to their male counterparts. Pay is often made
with commodities, not cash; an obvious advantage to many employers.
With the largest number of world brothels
in neighboring Mumbai, India, it is also a well-known fact that countless Dalit girls
have been lied to, coerced and cheated as they travel with high hopes outside Nepal for ‘honest’ jobs. Many have the idea of sending money
home, only to find out when they arrive they have become trapped by traffickers
in the Mumbai sex-industry. Many of these girls wait for years before they are
ever able to escape. Some never do.
Nepal’s Educational Wall
With only half the literacy rate of Dalit
men, many Dalit women are told they can never catch up, especially when
compared with upper-caste Nepali women. It’s sobering that a among two million
Dalit women there are only fifteen today who have graduate or postgraduate
degrees. This speaks volumes to the vulnerability in the life of Dalit women.
So what’s the solution?
source: PUNITA RIMAL with Lys Anzia – Women News Network – Fri July 17, 2009/wunrn.com
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