Issues and Voices for Gender Equality in Nepal

Gender equality has become a challenge still in Nepal due to many sociocultural factors. According to Adhikari R and Sharma J, shared in the European Bulletin of Himalayan Resource women are stereotypically represented as vulnerable, uneducated, or less educated Third World women in Nepal. This indicates explicitly that the social and political system of Nepal dominated by a patriarchal structure and rooted caste-based hierarchy system played a crucial role. Similarly, the United Nations in its publication Harmful Practices in Nepal Report on Community Perceptions (2020) states that women are by social norms and systems to remain a helper and a housewife of a husband. HTP such as Chhaupadi^[1], caste-based discrimination, witchcraft accusations, child marriage, dowry, and persecution are the main primary root causes for domestic violence and gender inequality. Elimination of Sati Pratha^[2] in the country is one of the great steps in reducing gender-based violence but the worrying factor is that violence exists in the country in different forms. This has pushed Nepali women into a high level of disparity with men. Here mostly men hold the power over women, which has led the society to significant gaps in social harmony and development at all levels.

United Nations (UN), and Nepal Administrative Staff College (NASC) clearly outlines:

The term Gender that refers to the set of characteristics, social roles, responsibilities, power relations, identities, and behavior patterns that distinguish women from men, which are constructed socially and culturally. Sex refers to the biological and physiological differences between males, females, and intersex (reproductive differences based on genitalia, chromosomes, and hormones) as determined by nature. It is universal and unchangeable. In short, sex refers to biological, born with, not changeable, and gender refers to socially constructed, not born with, changeable.

This further defined the term Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) term and its definition, as identity based on a person's sexual attraction to others and how the person interacts and is attracted to others. For example, they are categorized with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Homosexual, Gender Queer, and Cisgender terms and defined accordingly. In a similar vein, UN Women accepts the same definition in their publication, Country Gender Equality Profile Nepal (2023), and discusses the gender context in Nepal, which links it to multiple vulnerability contexts where women are disadvantaged and have experienced multiple forms of violence.

According to the International Organization for Migration, in Nepal, only 22.9% of working-age women are in some form of employment compared to 48% of men employed. UN Women’s Report, Gender Quality in Numbers: Progress and Challenges in achieving gender quality in Nepal (2021) shares that only 13% of women are in managerial positions whereas 22.9% of working-age women have engaged in minimum level of employment work in comparison with men employed 48%. This report further highlights that one-third of girls are still married before age 18, and the highest rate of polygynous marriage is found in Bagmati Province which shares 3.7%. Similarly, it further states that in Karnali 24%, and in Sudurpashim province 21% of women stay in Chhaupadi during menstruation, As further facts, suicide is the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age, with almost 3,000 cases recorded in 2021. According to Nepal police records for year 2020/21 a total of 4222 men committed suicide compared to 2919 cases by women. This indicates that men are highly affected by the toxic masculinity attitude and social pressure that brought them to suicide.

The progress shares, a) Women (15-49 yrs) experiencing violence from 22% in 2014 to 13.8% in 2020 and the milestone for 2025 is 6.9% and in 2030 is 0%, b) Women (15-49 yrs) experiencing sexual violence from 26% in 2014 to 16% in 2020 and milestone for 2025 is 8% and in 2030 is 0%. c) Women - men wage equality, in similar work progress was 62% to 76% from 2014 to 2020, and the milestone for 2025 is 88% and in 2030 is 100%, d) Women to men in tertiary level education-related progress was  71% to 82% from 2014 to 2020, and a milestone in 2025 is 91% and in 2030 is 100% and similarly e) Women (20-49 y) first married < age 18-year progress captures was 48.8% to 30.5% from 2014 to 2020, and the milestone for 2025 is 15.3% and in 3030 is 0%.

These key points share some progress and great milestones for 2025 and 2030, however, gender equality in the practice of social behavior, norms, and systems shows visible disparity and discrimination in the country despite good institutional progress in this area. 

It’s been 23 years since Nepal signed and ratified "The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women" (UN CEDAW), but it’s discouraging that there is still a huge disparity in gender equality in the country. There are indeed some good efforts in the country such as the newly formulated Nepal’s constitution 2015 has inclusion as a key feature and related other acts and policies are formulated and implemented, as a result, women's participation in parliament is nearly 40%.

Gender Equality Act 2006 defines rape as a crime and whoever commits an offense is liable to punishment of varying years of imprisonment, depending on the age of the victim and the extent of the crime committed. Similarly, the National Women Commission Act of 2017, the Sexual Harassment in the Workplace (Prevention) Act of 2015, the National Gender Equality Policy of 2021, Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act of 2007 are the other progressive highlights that can be counted. In addition, the government's Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) strategy 2021 highlights key three strategies by outlining a clear framework for the application of the mandate of the constitution on this.

These include a) the principle of proportionate participation and non-discrimination; b) the Formation and strengthening of constitutional mainly national commissions and human rights institutions, including the National Women, Inclusion, Dalit, and National Human Rights Commissions; and c) various fundamental rights of individuals and groups that address gender inequality and women's empowerment. This has mainly approached the entire stakeholders for taking affirmative action through both aspects such as empowering the women and excluded groups on one side and on another side enabling the environment and system that can easily participate meaningfully these groups in the development interventions as a sustainable process.

I personally think that gender equality can be viewed with primary two aspects a) human rights or institutional perspective and b) social or religious perspective. The social and religious perspective is more relative and contextual that influences the entire society and institutions to build a system to be continued for development as process.

So, looking at this context, some general questions are raised here.

Why the gender disparity still exist and gender-related violence increasing day by day? What are the factors contributing to this? Why do women feel treated as second leaders or subordinates in social and religious practices? Why are most religions blamed for practicing of male-dominating system and structure? Why are the policies not practiced as planned? What are indeed the issues and challenges for this in Nepalese context?

These are the key questions I think to be reflected and discussed in relation to the Nepalese context is required at current, so, a short reflection based on my own experience and some existing facts have been done below.

Focusing on the key questions above, the issues and challenges can be discussed mainly with two aspects:

a) Institutional, that is political or human rights aspect b) social and religious aspects. These both should be equally in progress as Amartya Sen highlights in his development as freedom book, democracy as political freedom, and social opportunities as social participation, health, and education facilities both should move equally as two tracks in the development in the true sense.

Here, the people as social agents can shape their own destinies and can help each other with the capacity of participation and decision making whereas the Sen approach capability theory for the actual freedom of people and women to be enabled for this.

A. Issues and challenges in the social aspect:

One of the key issues in this aspect is insufficient internalization and practice of gender roles and values as per the social and religious perception. 

According to Vivekananda (1863-1902) highlighted in the publication, Issues of Human Rights from a Hindu Perspective, Hindus believe in karma, or "intentional action", and that discrimination of any kind, including based on gender and sexuality, is negative action. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna tells his disciple Arjuna that women are just as capable as men of achieving liberation, or moksha. , Women who are mothers have always been highly respected in Hinduism, so in principle, women are equal to men in value, dignity, role, and capacity.

BBC's Bitesize, Practices in Buddhism highlights that there is no difference in Buddhist teaching between men and women where both men and women are subject to old age, sickness, death, desire, and suffering. It further highlights that women have equal capacity to men to have wisdom and enlightenment.

According to the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, WAMY Studies on Islam published an article on Gender Equity in Islam, the Qur'an claims, that men and women have the same spiritual human nature. It further states God created you from a single person and made his mate of like nature so that he might dwell with her (in love). The World Assembly of Muslim Youth further states, that when men and women are united, women bear a light burden and carry it about (unnoticed) where both genders are dignified and are trustees of Allah on earth.

In Christian faith, the truth is God never wants disparity. The Bible states God created humans in his image, and we can experience that God is in all ways the source of good things and positive change. So, it's an overarching principle of God that there is no inequality or any form of violence in the kingdom of God; instead, God wants love and unity in us. Book Genesis of the Bible says, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Here God created men and women to be helpers for each other and God wanted unity among them. Here, the helper does not mean only a woman to be a helper and a man to be a possessor, instead help each other. Importantly Jesus Christ himself practiced a role model for gender equality by breaking the gender barriers with revolutionary actions, teachings, and attitudes toward women in a cultural context that often marginalized them. For example, Jesus openly spoke with a Samaritan woman whose were considered an untouchable person during that time, even though there were strong cultural taboos the Jews were not allowed to interact with Samaritans in public.

In fact, we can believe, that most religions have given equal value to women as men in principle because all religion's ultimate creator is God or Nature, which never creates bias or disparity, instead a source of good and positive actions. It's understood that all the religious practices and social systems are built and delivered from generation to generation to run the society and to balance the rights and roles in society. However, the disparity increased due to the wrongful exercising of power possessed by social norms and social structures.  Sociocultural values and systems that have been strongly rooted for centuries are indeed powerful in influencing the society and power hierarchy of the people. It’s difficult to change them overnight with some short orientations and training for awareness strategies. Hence, it's important to challenge the power hierarchy and stereotyped mindset of society.

The patriarchal system in Nepal is one of the indirect factors pushing women to such discrimination and disparity. For example, a woman must be dependent on her husband and must depend on the inheritance properties of her husband's family. In all ways, she must be responsible to the husband's family and should perform all the roles as socially constructed roles assigned to them. In addition, Harmful Traditional Practices (HTP), child marriage, Myths about gender, polygamy, dowry system are the factors directly increasing gender disparity and gender-based violence. Moreover, in the case system of the country, the women in Dalit communities faced multiple vulnerabilities, such as untouchability discrimination, and poverty that pushed them to bear higher levels of violence and contributed to the system power disparity. Therefore, all stakeholders must comprehend the foundational significance of gender about their religion and faith, internalize the equal worth of men and women, and implement this understanding within society. This advancement demands that all relevant stakeholders, both those right holders and those responsible for upholding them, duty bearers or social actors confront stereotypical mindsets and work actively to eradicate gender disparity and discrimination. Here the role of faith/religious leaders seems very crucial, as they elaborate and practice the religious truth, which the people believe and apply seriously for the sake of building a better relationship with God or spiritual power.

In this case, the social and religious leaders seem failed to deliver the right education in regards to gender equality, or in another sense, they are in the opinion to carry on the system for the sake of masculinity benefit and continue the work as their job for their social benefit. This is in fact the men are also suffering due to the social pressure and toxic masculinity attitude.

B. Issues and challenges in human rights or institutional aspects:

The policies and acts in Nepal, as mentioned above appear to be well-structured in this context; however, deeply rooted social values, along with stereotypical attitudes and discriminatory behaviors, are hindering their practical implementation for meaningful change in gender equality.

The Global Gender Gap Report 2024 from the World Economic Forum reveals that Iceland, Finland, and Norway are the top three countries in terms of gender equality, each achieving scores exceeding 87%. This improvement is primarily attributed to a positive shift in the personal attitudes and behaviors of individuals, particularly among men toward women; however, the percentage of women in political representation remains around 44-46%. According to this report, Rwanda is positioned at 39th place, where women make up 63.8% of the parliamentary representatives, with 55% of cabinet members being women, and 4 out of 7 judges in the Supreme Court being female. Similarly, Nepal ranks 117th out of 146 countries in gender equality. Nepal's gender inequality index score is 0.661.

This fact, reveals that the formulation of policies and bringing women into the top leading roles only does not ensure meaningful inclusion and equality in society. In the pursuit of inclusion, many countries exhibit tokenism driven by superficial advocacy and promotional efforts. In reality, true inclusion and equality stem from recognizing the inherent worth and resilience of every individual while embracing diversity with an open mind and a genuine commitment to education that translates knowledge into meaningful action.

On the side, since the policies and acts are formed for the rights of women, the implementation of those policies and acts are being challenged in the same context, the main observed reason is that people do not participate in the formulation of these policies, and the policies are formulated without understanding the women's real spirit. Once women started being empowered, in the family a husband and other family members faced challenges and created misunderstanding instead of internalizing the gender discrimination in the true sense. The policies expected to create a joyful and harmonious society having received rights for everybody, but in practice they created fractions, division, tension, and an increased high rate of divorce in the Nepalese context, however getting right is not always peaceful. Bhasa Sharma shares a fact in Republica paper with a title, Kathmandu records the highest number of divorce cases….2024, an average of 13 divorce cases are filed daily over a year in Kathmandu. This might be one side a good indication to challenge the discriminative mindset and values but the positive way would be to practice the policy through mutual understanding enabling women to be able to claim rights meaningfully and make the duty bearer and actor responsible for providing rights and enjoy mutually. That would be an equilibrium point as Leon Walras mentioned in the economics, where both the customer and sellers are happy.

So here, a possible takeaway for gender equality is to start the equality from own individual’s personal behavior and family in value, respect, equal opportunity in education, resources, and meaningful participation in every decision-making process. The subsequent essential step is to distribute the family property equally among both sons and daughters. Although it's stated in the policy it is not applied in practice. By birth, a girl must have an equal right to get inherent property, but in practice, the patriarchal system and the policy derived by the patriarchal system provide rights to get inherent property from her husband's family. This in fact leads a woman indirectly to be dependent on her husband's family. In principle, if we rely on someone else, we are somehow conditioned to follow them, unless there is a highly respectful environment and set of values.

Therefore, in order to transform a patriarchal society into a gender-equal society, we must begin right away by giving boys and girls equal rights in the family's inherent property, this must be practiced in every family, However, property is not the only factor; relationships, respect, values, and harmony are also important.

In the event of a divorce, the property earned jointly by the husband and wife, in addition to the property they brought from their birth family, will be divided equally between them. Both men and women may develop a mindset that encourages them to own their property rather than expecting their husbands to provide it for them. Additionally, until equality is practiced to one extent, empowering women with targeted programs, and ensuring balance in the power dynamic through affirmative actions for the proportionate inclusion and meaningful participation of every woman in the system and structures are to be continued as a process in every development system.

In conclusion, Nepal has still gender-related disparities men continue to hold mostly the social and political positions as privilege and power. The key factors contributing to this disparity are harmful traditional practices, power hierarchy, stereotyped mindset, and toxic masculinity acquired by birth from the patriarchal system of the country. To most extent, this has left women in marginalized communities, particularly those in minority groups. Therefore, one strategy is to accurately interpret and apply gender social and religious norms and models, as well as to educate the general public, including those in charge of formulating policy, about gender equality. On the other hand, involving men in the process of gender equality through personal internalization and encouraging their effective actions to change positive masculinity is currently a suitable strategy in the Nepalese context. To achieve this must be prominently established the gender equality at the individual level and in every family by granting equal rights to sons and daughters to education, family property, value, and decision-making authority over all family resources. Among these, the practice of giving family property equally to sons and daughters is a potent one that instills in women a sense of independence and dignity rather than a dependence on the husband's family assets. To do this, though, calls for meaningful, deep levels of discourse in larger communities to create a social and religious understanding, and framework and address the policy gaps through persistent, ongoing campaigns and advocacy.

(Mr. Bashyal is a social development worker, currently working in the United Mission to Nepal as a Disability Inclusion Advisor.)