Namrata Sharma

Rape culture” is being exposed almost every day by media in Nepal. The most recent case of Bhagrathi Bhatta has triggered a nationwide rage. However, although cases are exposed by media and taken up to some extent by the civil societies, it is still a sad reality that victims and survivors have rarely received justice and perpetrators get off scot-free. The time has now come to explore where have we gone wrong? A research I did, explored evidence in Nepal and elsewhere mainly Asia to see the linkage between women’s economic empowerment and protection of women and children. Nepal government has invested significantly with donor support and has attempted to play a key role in addressing the issues of the most marginalised population of the country.
However, with the dawn of a “rape culture” that is surfacing too often in Nepal these days, time has come to question whether approaches and efforts to stop Gender Based Violence (GBV) is indeed being successful. With the incidents of crimes like rape and all sorts of other violence against children, mainly girls, and women increasing day by day it is obvious that it may not be enough by just formulating laws and implementing programmes.

Women’s empowerment
For several decades now governments, civil societies and donors have been implementing various projects with a goal of achieving women’s empowerment. One major activity of achieving this goal has been involvement of women in economic empowerment. Although the governments of countries like Nepal have not accounted the work women’s input in sectors like agriculture, labour and household as their input to the national economy, there have been several programmes targeted on women, particularly poor women in rural parts of the country to involve them in predesigned economic activities.
Microfinance activities to access external finance and microenterprise to increase their entrepreneurial endeavours are especially designed by the government of Nepal as part of its national policy. Department of Women Development (DWD) and Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (MoWCSW) have been working for several decades to empower the Nepali women especially the rural women with grant from different donors. While working on women’s empowerment, one major focus has to be on the protection of women and children which has also been the focus of both the Government of Nepal (GoN) and donor agencies.
One tool in the implementation strategy of addressing the protection issue has been through Para Legal Committees (PLC). The government implements the Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme in which they have merged the activities of the PLCs. The approach is to strengthen the women’s groups, form committees and establish institutions which are mainly to be registered as multipurpose cooperatives. The capacity of these cooperatives are to be built to provide financial services to its members and also carry out the function of the PLCs in resolving issues related to Violence Against Women (VAW).
Nepal has a mixed experience of cooperative movement. There are successful women-headed and mixed-sex cooperatives providing excellent services to women. Similarly, there are also cases where fraud is rampant. It is also a universal fact that credit unions have the tendency of being governed by the elite of the community so they appear to not addressing the issues of the poorest and most excluded. Also where saving and credit activities are conducted due to the donor and government focus on financial sustainability the drive usually shifts towards viability of the institutions rather than overall empowerment and protection issues of women and children.
My study on the link between the issues of women’s economic empowerment and protection tried to highlight this matter and help policy makers to look in a holistic way to achieve women’s empowerment where they can live in a violence-free households, communities and nation. It has been found that economic empowerment is definitely one tool of empowerment, however, there have been incidents where violence against women may erupt when women are involved in economic activities be it short term or long term and pass out slowly as generations pass by. Therefore, it is essential to look at such evidence and integrate a strategy of protection within programmes to address such issues right from the beginning. Several studies have clearly shown that there is a sort of ‘juxtaposed’ relation between women’s empowerment and protection.

Self-esteem
My research question in the above-mentioned study was, “What is the link between the economic empowerment of women, their protection, and the protection of their children?” In process of finding answers it found that several reports already done gave evidence indicating the fact that as women are involved in economic activities, their self-esteem, respect in the family, improvement in the education and health of children improve. However, there were several reports indicating that economic empowerment does not necessarily protect women and children from violence.
Economic empowerment is not a panacea but just one tool of empowerment. An UNICEF report mentions “… protection requires addressing root causes and improving the circumstances of the most vulnerable, ensuring that basic economic, social and civil rights are realised. In this context it is imperative that programmes designed by governments, donors and civil societies focusing on women should always look at how such programmes are impacting them and what the implications are related to women and children’s protection issues…”
Therefore, the time has now come to review where we have gone wrong and address it to make sure our girls and women are safe. Programmes should target the community in general not just women so that the community changes leading to a change in the nation.

(Namrata Sharma is a senior journalist and women rights advocate. namrata1964@yahoo.com Twitter handle: NamrataSharmaP)