World Of The Girl Child

When the United Nations Decade for Women ended in 1985, there was unspoken relief among many people that the "women in development thing" was finally over and life could go back to as it was before all the feministic tamasha. In reality, of course, the Decade was quite successful in focusing international attention on the status and future of humanity's female half. But in legitimising society's concern for women, even the United Nations had forgotten someone — the girl who grows up to be the woman.

Grinding poverty, powerlessness and premature death mark the life of the millions of men, women, boys and girls in South Asia. However, life is invariably worst for the girl. She gets less to eat, owns little or no property, has less access to education, is sick more often — yet receives less health care — and does more chores at home. In general, she has the little or no control over the direction of her life -this in a region which has had three female prime ministers in the last fifteen years.

At their January Summit, the leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) decided to observe next year, 1990, as the Year of the Girl Child. This decision was the result of a unique drive by South Asian social scientists, activists and officials –women and men — who had met since 1985 in seminars, workshops and informal brainstorming sessions to discuss the urgency of the issue. In the end, they challenged the regional political leadership to try to understand the plight of the girl child and do something about it.

Coining the term "girl child" has put the spotlight on the girl as a person, not just as a daughter, sister, wife, mother — or chattel.

THE SON PREFERRED

Bias against the girl begins at birth. Nepal, for example, is said to have among the highest index of son-preference in the world. In a recent survey, economist Yagya Karki found 90 percent of the parents wanted two sons and then one girl. Given the theoretical choice of having only sons or only daughters, 96 percent stated they would rather have sons. Simply put, boys are welcome and girls are not.

Rather than being a joyful moment, the arrival of a baby girl is liable to cast a pall over the family. Every person in Kathmandu knows of at least one tragicomic case in which the poor civil servant and his dejected wife continue to have child after child in an attempt to have a son and in the end are left with a brood of nine or ten daughters.

The family's preference for a male child is directly linked with the preservation of the kul, or patrilineal name. "Regardless of the economic status of the family — whether rich or poor, urban or rural — the kul tops the list of reasons for preferring sons to daughters," says Karki. Sons, in turn, are responsible for performing the all-important death rituals. These guarantee the parents' entrance into the pitralok, or ancestral heavens, a service for which land inheritance is the son's due payment. And land, in Nepal, is the root of all power.

But, the preference for males does not end at birth. The man continues to benefit, at cost to the woman, in a nearly unbroken chain of privilege from infancy through old age. The girl knows this and must accept it from the start. In studying situations of extreme hardship, UNICEF has found that young boys tend to get more and better food than do girls, and are accorded better medical attention. Result: females suffer higher mortality rates in every age category after the first year of life. On the average, a Nepali girl will live to be 51, while the boy will live a little longer, until 54.

WEB OF POWERLESSNESS

The Status of Women in Nepal, a 1981 USAID-funded study that examined conditions in eight widely diverse rural communities, found that males worked shorter days, contributed less household income and made fewer decisions on running the household. Yet, according to law and tradition, sons alone have an indisputable right to inherit land, except under special conditions.

While the entry into adulthood of Brahmin and Chhetri boys is heralded with the festive bartaman ceremony, girls are still quarantined in unlit rooms as untouchables at the onset of menstruation. Most boys still go through bartaman, but the guniu cholo ceremony that marks the "coming of age" for girls has almost disappeared from Kathmandu society, perhaps because it is not regarded as important.

Girls often "graduate" from childhood to womanhood without being allowed to enjoy the relatively carefree period of adolescence available to their well-to-do sisters. As soon as they are able to take up household chores, they become mothers' helpers or marry and become hard working daughters-in-law. Largely because they must work more at home and field, girls either do not go to school or drop out early if they do. As a consequence, literacy among Nepali females is only about one- quarter that of males, 18 per cent compared to 52 per cent.

In the countryside, while thousands of young hill boys gain prestige and fortune each year by going off to join the Gurkhas, their sisters are callously trafficked in even greater numbers to the slum brothels in Bombay and Calcutta, condemned to lives of shame as prostitutes.

Ever since Kathmandu's dailies started printing the police blotter, readers have been struck that so many of the reported suicides are of girls 18 to 22 years in age. Suicide — the worst portent in Hinduism for an unfavourable rebirth — is for young women the ultimate escape mechanism from cruelty, neglect and despair. And so the cycle continues.

DANGEROUS WIVES

Comparative studies on women's work in South Asia refer to a common "ideology of subjugation" which places severe restrictions on women's labour, mobility and authority. In her landmark book, Dangerous Wives and Sacred Sisters, social scientist Lynn Bennett examined the ambiguous and often contradictory roles of "high caste" Nepali women. As sisters, the are considered "sacred" Devis, ritually worshipped for their virgin power. But as new wives, they are considered "dangerous" because their mature sexuality can be effectively employed for the attainment of personal ends that threaten the patrilineal solidarity of the husband's family.

But, if women have formidable influence in some households, only men have real power — the power to unilaterally pursue their interests and fulfil their aspirations. The religious and cultural values which interpenetrate Nepali society act as a web that holds women firmly in a position of powerlessness, defeating most of the piecemeal legal and economic measures that attempt to correct the imbalance.

Changing these traditions, through legislative or developmental means, tampers with the very tenets of Hinduism. Thus, beneath the question of women's rights lies a deeper and more troubling issue: can women aspire to complete parity with men and still retain their essential religious and cultural identity?

HAPPY WIVES

Interestingly, many educated Hindu women bridle at being depicted as the most downtrodden in society. Unfavourable as circumstances are, they say they feel "comfortable" with their religion and their lives, and with their ability to make important decisions for their families. The "objective" tests for the quality of life are based, they say, on Western values which fail to take into account familial relationships and traditional roles. Says one convent educated housewife in Kathmandu, "Girls do grow up more often than not to be well loved sisters, happy wives and contented mothers."

There might indeed by happy wives and contented mothers, but the question is one of parity and equity. Does the female, with intellectual resources equal to that of the male, have equal access to opportunities? The answer to that simple, key, question is "no" in almost every area of Nepali society. While the occasional woman might indeed epitomise the role model of a housewife and yet lead a professionally fulfilling life, she is the lucky exception and not the rule.

Actually, social anthropologists argue among themselves whether there is even such a thing as "the" status of women. Some of them contend that economy, religion, culture overlap to form a complex web of complimentary dimensions and relationships, so that it is not possible to peg the quality of the girl's or women's status at a certain quantifiable level.

Some say that Nepali girls and women are situated better than their sisters elsewhere. "Compared to women in many communities in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, we have more mobility, better security, fewer restrictions and are generally better off, " says Bina Pradhan, Director of the Center for Women and Development in Kathmandu.

EDUCATION, LAW AND ROLE MODELS

Indeed, the status of girls has not remained static. A great deal of progress has been made, particularly in health and education. His Majesty's Government has had notable success in reducing child mortality, bringing girls into schools, establishing more equitable laws, and offering positive role models with women.

"As a young girl I wasn't even permitted to look at books because everyone thought, 'Why does a girl need an education?' But I always wanted to study. So when a guru came to our house to teach my brother, I sat nearby overhearing and learning by rote."

This account by Sushila Thapa put into some perspective the distance the country has traveled in 50 years. Though burdened by being denied formal education, Mrs. Thapa went on to serve for 24 years as a Member of the Rastriya Panchayat, State Minister of Health, Chairperson of the Nepal Women's Organisation and finally, in mid-1988, became the first woman to occupy a full cabinet post as Health Minister. The visibility and power of her latest appointment is clear indication of the official encouragement women are being given to assume social service roles.

Though still a minority in the classroom, girls today are actively encouraged to enter primary school with Government incentives, such. as free tuition and textbooks, or to attend informal "cheli beti" classes if they are unable to attend school during regular hours.

JUST KNIT AND SOW

Unfortunately, according to UNICEF, few of these new strategies have had much impact on the overall problems of the girl child. That failure is partly due to inadequate Government commitment. Most development projects, for example, still relegate women's activities to the economic periphery. Rather than programmes designed to bring women into the economic mainstream, "knitting and sewing" training course are everywhere. On the whole, education seems to be of little value.

Mostly, though, the status of the girl today is due to the long standing social customs and attitudes. Mrs. Thapa was married at age 13, for example, and 50 years later some 40 per cent of Nepali women still wed before the legal age of 16. Many orthodox families are afraid that a school-going daughter will become "uttauli", or wayward.

Parents are yet to be entirely convinced of the value of educating their daughters. Education, in fact, still offers little promise or remuneration for rural girls. As a "Save the Children" program officer in central Nepal said, "I can't imagine a girl who comes up through the school system in Gorkha actually finding a job when she finishes."

Even girls from well-to-do urban families graduate for no other purpose but to be domesticated running the households of their husbands. In a male dominated workplace, the odds are against the girl who hopes to start a career after school and college. Less than ten percent government civil servants in Nepal are women, and a visit to most any business office reveals an unvarying pecking order of women secretaries and male bosses.

For that reason, Mrs. Thapa and others emphasise "education for awareness, not for employment", as a way to begin expanding girls' vision of themselves and their place in society. The term "employment" itself, for example, carries a certain connotation, since it typically refers only to jobs in the "all male" marketplace. Yet, roughly 80 percent of Nepal's economy is represented by household production, dominated by women. Because this production tends to be consumed by the household itself and has little cash value, its "use value" is invisible and largely ignored.

UNDERSTANDING "USE VALUE"

The marginal place of women in the marketplace is reflected by the experience of the Small Business Promotion Project in Kathmandu, which helps develop small-scale entre-preneurship in seven urban centres of Nepal. Although widely recognised as a successful campaign, only one of the Project's 20 field consultants is a woman and only a few of its nearly 300 clients.

What is really needed, according to Bina Pradhan, is a change in how we view the "use value" of women's contribution to the mainstream economy, household food production, animal husbandry, fuel collection and so forth, and that must begin in the classroom. First and foremost, she says, the women themselves must be convinced of the "use value" of their work.

Expanding upon her point, Ms. Pradhan states that it is not only a question of convincing men, but building awareness among women themselves of their rights, their potential and the crucial role they play in the economy of their country. "Even if the government passed a law that said 50 percent of workers must be women, it would not help," she says. "If one does not have an awareness that inequity exists, then it will not be removed."

As Razia Ismail from UNICEF's Delhi office observes of India, although it could apply to any country of South Asia, "It is an intriguing challenge for any society to address. If half the children continue to get less than their fair share of food, health care, education, opportunities for growth and development, leave aside love and respect, how is India going to achieve the social and even economic goals it has set for itself?"

The leaders of SAARC, kings, prime ministers and presidents, have indicated that they are indeed aware of the inequity that exists. That is a big step forward, but the hurdles remain. Girls in South Asia enter life heavily disadvantaged, at home, school, farm and workplace, and remain so all the way to the burning ghat. If they practice what they have begun to preach, the governments of South Asia can begin to change the situation.

The biggest challenge, though, is to bring about a change in the self perception of the girl child- that she is not property, but a person, with the same potential as the "boy child".

~By J. Michael Luhan and Poonam Thapa

Poonam Thapa is a Reader in Geography at Tribhuvan University. J. Michael Luhan is a journalist based in Kathmandu.