Candice Telfer
Women’s Foundation of Nepal (WF)- Kathmandu
I spent this past summer working at the Kathmandu office of the Women’s Foundation of Nepal (WF). The wealth of experience and emotion that I derived from this experience goes way beyond a brief report; in some ways there is a lifetime’s worth of processing to be done. For these purposes, however, I will focus on three particularly educative aspects of my placement: the functioning of the WF as a successful NGO, the specific legal issues I engaged with, and the general legal milieu of Nepal.
The WF is perhaps the most effective and productive NGO I have seen. The organization is mandated to improve the lives of women and children affected by violence – both domestic and conflict (Nepal was torn by civil insurgency for 10 years, ending in 2006). It runs several shelters for women and children, a large woven goods production centre where women from the shelters are trained and employed, and recently has bought and begun to cultivate an organic farm. It also engages in multiple activist, educative and counselling activities. The current director, Renu Sharma, started the organization 15 years ago as a student activist. In that time its membership has grown to over 2,000. The director and secretary general are elected from within the membership every 4 years. Its activities are increasingly self-funded and the bulk of donations now go directly to sponsoring women and children for food, clothing, and education costs. As an NGO, it is a particularly inspiring enterprise.
My job was largely to collate case histories from the shelters by the laws (or lack thereof) that each engaged. This information is being used by the WF lawyers in their advocacy reports, as there is an ongoing campaign to update the over 60 discriminatory laws still on the books. The following issues are recurrent themes through these cases. First, there is no law against domestic violence in Nepal. Women are still seen as little more than property. One woman I know has multiple burns over her body after her husband doused her with boiling water because she didn’t come fast enough to light his cigarette. Police will not intervene in domestic situations – aside from the prevailing culture of male-dominance – because they have no legal authority to do so. Second, women cannot own property or gain citizenship without the express permission of husbands or fathers. What this effectively means is that women and children who are abandoned have no option but to live on the street, being assimilated into the growing homeless population in Nepal, and are forced into illegal carpet factories, domestic work and the sex trade. Third, it is still accepted and legal that a rape is equivalent to a marriage, so a woman who is raped not only loses any agency in choosing her life path, but should she choose not to remain with the rapist is ostracized in her community as “tainted goods”, unmarriageable, and a bad wife. Finally, child marriage is technically illegal, but this law is not enforced. One devastating instance I encountered is a woman who was married at the age of 7. At 15, her husband abandoned her because she was infertile (I’m sure anyone forced into sexual relations at the age of 7 would have a pretty messed up reproductive system), beaten and thrown out on the street. This woman is now working at the WF office as an assistant, literate and proudly taking English classes twice a week. Her story, for me, is the perfect example of the emotionally turbulent nature of working at this organization – reconciling the absolute horror of her background with the inspiration of her recovery.
My personal interest in law is the intersection between constitutionalism and rights, and Nepal is a fascinating place in which to consider that juncture. After the civil war an Interim Constitution was instituted to direct governance until such time as a final constitution could be drafted (currently anticipated to happen mid-2008). What I find interesting about this document, in light of my work at the WF, is that it includes very expansive rights protection – including complete equality. However, the actual laws “on-the-ground” do not reflect this, and there is currently no real political will to change this, as other issues continuously get prioritized (such as the abolition of the monarchy – the “hot topic” in Nepal at the moment). Further, there is no institutional will to enforce these guarantees. Many of the residents of the WF’s hidden shelters are hidden precisely because they are the wives of police or bureaucrats who have been abused and have no other recourse for protection. My observations in Nepal have given me much to consider about the effectiveness of constitutions and how a document becomes a societal directive.
As noted, this is only a surface survey of a hugely experiential summer. I think perhaps the most poignant aspect of working in this environment was putting a face on human rights. Every case history was a person; every person became a friend who wanted to spend time laughing and singing and sharing her or his life with me. Leaving was probably the hardest part of the summer.