Shelters at the Forefront of Ending Violence against Women （庇護所：終結針對女性暴力的先鋒）
Type:
Proposal(Workshop / Presentation)
Coordinating organization:
Women for Human Rights single women group
Theme:
New Methods in Shelter Management and Social Work
Language:
English
Organization Name:
Women for Human Rights single women group （尼泊爾婦女促進人權組織）
Describe your workshop/presentation (300-500 words):
Nepal, the landlocked multiethnic, multilingual, multi-religious country, is situated north of India in the Himalayas, in the region where, about 40 to 50 million years ago, the Indian subcontinent has crashed into Asia. Because of that accident, Nepal has some of the world's highest mountains including Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest, 8848m, which it shares with Tibet (by now a province of China). The highest mountain on Earth is towering above populated valleys and forested plains.
Somewhere here in the Kapilavastu district, there is a place called Lumbini where in about 500 B.C.E. Queen Mayadevi is said to have given birth to Siddhartha Gautama, better known as Buddha.
In Nepal there is 26 million people according to 2011 census.51% of them are women. There are 125 caste/ethnicities, 123 languages, and 9 religions.
Among 51% 6% are widows
67%of widows are between 20 to 25 years of age and have an average of 3 to 4 children. Data also shows that of the 6% widows 86% of widows are illiterate and just 2% hold higher degree.90% of widows live in rural areas below poverty line and 46% do not have property in their own name and live in joint families. Many widows who live in joint families are providing free care and household work for relatives in exchange for housing. The dropout rates of daughter of widows are very high. Many widows work in informal sector and a lot of widows are pushed
Into sex workers just to survive.
Single Women in Nepal
Nepal is a patriarchal society. Women mostly play a subordinate role in everyday life. Although in urban settings the position of women seems to be strengthening compared to that of the rural areas, much more action needs to be taken. In the rural areas women still perform their household chores, raise a family, take care of children, and raise cattle and farm. Single women as defined by the WHR
(Women For Human Rights) of Nepal are “the widows, wives of missing husbands, divorcees, unmarried women of 35 years of age and women separated but not divorced from their husbands” (WHR). In the context of Nepal, most women have become widows since the time of insurgency. The plight of being single women in Nepal is significantly governed by the cultural and religious beliefs.
They are discriminated culturally, socially economically, and legally as a result its effect in their life physically, mentally and economically. WHR has shelters in different places of the country.
Shelter (here it refers Chhahari a Nepali word that means shade of a tree where weary travellers can reenergize and continue with their journey) works with single women; widows, wives of missing husbands, divorcees, unmarried women of 35 years of age or women separated but not divorced from their husband. WHR has adopted unique methods to give voices to single women. It brings together widows of all categories including single women from all sides of the conflict on a leveled platform regardless of their caste, ethnic groups or political background. It also focuses on delivery services to Home based Single Women workers and enhancing their capacities and skills to ensure a respectable standard of living.
The study conducted by WHR in 2008 revealed that approximately 81% of single women face different forms of violence. The decade long conflict in Nepal has further aggravated their situation which includes mental and physical violence, sexual harassment, internal migration and displacement. The migrated and displaced widows also face harassment and their struggle for livelihood pushes them to chronic vulnerability. Among single women, HIV affected, displaced, elderly and disabled widows are more vulnerable.
Consequences of all these violence on them and their children:
Single women in Nepali society are faced with everyday challenges to lead a normal life. In the course of fulfilling their basic needs and fighting for their fundamental rights, a single woman has to undergo several crises situation and difficulty. Some of the major impact resulting from the cultural restraint, conflict situation, and health problem are as follows:
Education, Health, Gender inequality, Internal Migration, Feminization of poverty and Sexual Violence.
Where We Want TO Reach
WHR has a data of more than 100000 single women in Nepal, most of them illiterate or semi-literate who often do not know of their own rights. They are the ones who work behind the screen, do the entire domestic chores yet are not valued as a woman. Many of them are sexually harassed, physically tortured, thrown out of their home for irrelevant reasons, treated as granted servants and many others are thought as a bad omen during normal and auspicious days/events.
Chhahari wants to reach to those places where single women in general need a safe space, a place where they are treated as equals, a place where they are valued and treated with respect and dignity and are provided/given trainings as according to their necessity to sustain their life after they have moved on from Chhahari. At the same time, providing them with enough information and making them aware of their rights through awareness programs has been a major concern of Chhahari.
The villages have very limited access to market and market outlet; hence Chhahari at the districts will act as a collection center for the products (agro farmed products, organic products, handicrafts) package them and send them to the cities for sales of these products. Chhahari will not only market these products but also work towards getting a fair price of the products whose direct beneficiary will be the single women. This will make the life cycle complete; a vulnerable single women from the districts and villages come to Chhahari for a safe space, receive .
counseling, rehabilitation and trainings after their needs are identified, build their confidence level, upon receiving the training they are reintegrated back into their society and their family, with independency in economic and social level.
;;
Somewhere here in the Kapilavastu district, there is a place called Lumbini where in about 500 B.C.E. Queen Mayadevi is said to have given birth to Siddhartha Gautama, better known as Buddha.
In Nepal there is 26 million people according to 2011 census.51% of them are women. There are 125 caste/ethnicities, 123 languages, and 9 religions.
Among 51% 6% are widows
67%of widows are between 20 to 25 years of age and have an average of 3 to 4 children. Data also shows that of the 6% widows 86% of widows are illiterate and just 2% hold higher degree.90% of widows live in rural areas below poverty line and 46% do not have property in their own name and live in joint families. Many widows who live in joint families are providing free care and household work for relatives in exchange for housing. The dropout rates of daughter of widows are very high. Many widows work in informal sector and a lot of widows are pushed
Into sex workers just to survive.
Single Women in Nepal
Nepal is a patriarchal society. Women mostly play a subordinate role in everyday life. Although in urban settings the position of women seems to be strengthening compared to that of the rural areas, much more action needs to be taken. In the rural areas women still perform their household chores, raise a family, take care of children, and raise cattle and farm. Single women as defined by the WHR
(Women For Human Rights) of Nepal are “the widows, wives of missing husbands, divorcees, unmarried women of 35 years of age and women separated but not divorced from their husbands” (WHR). In the context of Nepal, most women have become widows since the time of insurgency. The plight of being single women in Nepal is significantly governed by the cultural and religious beliefs.
They are discriminated culturally, socially economically, and legally as a result its effect in their life physically, mentally and economically. WHR has shelters in different places of the country.
Shelter (here it refers Chhahari a Nepali word that means shade of a tree where weary travellers can reenergize and continue with their journey) works with single women; widows, wives of missing husbands, divorcees, unmarried women of 35 years of age or women separated but not divorced from their husband. WHR has adopted unique methods to give voices to single women. It brings together widows of all categories including single women from all sides of the conflict on a leveled platform regardless of their caste, ethnic groups or political background. It also focuses on delivery services to Home based Single Women workers and enhancing their capacities and skills to ensure a respectable standard of living.
The study conducted by WHR in 2008 revealed that approximately 81% of single women face different forms of violence. The decade long conflict in Nepal has further aggravated their situation which includes mental and physical violence, sexual harassment, internal migration and displacement. The migrated and displaced widows also face harassment and their struggle for livelihood pushes them to chronic vulnerability. Among single women, HIV affected, displaced, elderly and disabled widows are more vulnerable.
Consequences of all these violence on them and their children:
Single women in Nepali society are faced with everyday challenges to lead a normal life. In the course of fulfilling their basic needs and fighting for their fundamental rights, a single woman has to undergo several crises situation and difficulty. Some of the major impact resulting from the cultural restraint, conflict situation, and health problem are as follows:
Education, Health, Gender inequality, Internal Migration, Feminization of poverty and Sexual Violence.
Where We Want TO Reach
WHR has a data of more than 100000 single women in Nepal, most of them illiterate or semi-literate who often do not know of their own rights. They are the ones who work behind the screen, do the entire domestic chores yet are not valued as a woman. Many of them are sexually harassed, physically tortured, thrown out of their home for irrelevant reasons, treated as granted servants and many others are thought as a bad omen during normal and auspicious days/events.
Chhahari wants to reach to those places where single women in general need a safe space, a place where they are treated as equals, a place where they are valued and treated with respect and dignity and are provided/given trainings as according to their necessity to sustain their life after they have moved on from Chhahari. At the same time, providing them with enough information and making them aware of their rights through awareness programs has been a major concern of Chhahari.
The villages have very limited access to market and market outlet; hence Chhahari at the districts will act as a collection center for the products (agro farmed products, organic products, handicrafts) package them and send them to the cities for sales of these products. Chhahari will not only market these products but also work towards getting a fair price of the products whose direct beneficiary will be the single women. This will make the life cycle complete; a vulnerable single women from the districts and villages come to Chhahari for a safe space, receive .
counseling, rehabilitation and trainings after their needs are identified, build their confidence level, upon receiving the training they are reintegrated back into their society and their family, with independency in economic and social level.
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