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There have been positive indications towards empowering women and improving their status since the promulgation of the new constitution in 2015  

The world, including Nepal, marked 110th International Women’s Day on Sunday in celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The theme for the International Women’s Day was ‘I am Generation Equality: Realising Women’s Rights’, and the various programmes that were organised to mark the day called for greater gender equality, elimination of gender discrimination and women’s empowerment. While the status of women has improved over the decades, there is a big divide between women living in the urban centres and the rural areas. In a country dominated by patriarchal traditions, women continue to lag behind their male counterparts in health, education, income and decision-making. Violence against women is not only widespread, it is also growing alarmingly, as documented by a recent human rights body, INSEC. However, there have been positive indications towards empowering women and improving their status since the promulgation of the new constitution.

The new constitution must be considered a landmark in ensuring the fundamental rights of women and in trying to guarantee 33 per cent representation in all three tiers of the government. Although the government and the political parties have faltered in implementing this constitutional provision at the federal and provincial levels, it is heartening to see fair representation of women in the 753 local levels (municipalities and Gaupalikas). The constitution has provisioned that either the head or the deputy head of the local levels should be a woman. As a result, almost 700 local governments have women deputy chiefs and the remaining even as chiefs. And since the deputy chief is the coordinator of the three-member judicial committees formed at the local level, it is the women who have assumed big responsibility in settling disputes there and also addressing issues related to gender discrimination and the like. The constitution has also made it mandatory to have a woman and a dalit woman among the members in the wards of the local levels.

There has been sea change in the way of looking at the female sex. Increasingly, both the government and the people are investing in the education and health of girls. The ‘Beti Bachau-Beti Padhau’ campaign is an insurance scheme to encourage girls’ education in

Read the full story on The Himalayan Times

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