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Mutiny at home

December 9, 2009

Nepalese women work the family fields and keep the house, yet they have no ownership rights. Men own 90 percent of land and 94 percent of the country's property.

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Nepalese woman walking down the road with two kids
Women in Nepal have lots of responsibilities but little rightsImage: AP

Nepalese women work the family fields and keep the house, yet they have no ownership rights. Men own 90 percent of the land and 94 percent of the country's property.

If a Nepalese woman's father or husband dies, she's often left empty-handed. Male relatives on the other hand are offered their pick of the inheritance.

In case of a divorce, it is the same scenario: the woman is also often left with nothing - until now.

Bishnu Manandhar, for example, is in her early 60s. She was forced into a marriage as a young girl and after the wedding, moved into her husband's house. One day, her mother-in-law sent her back to her parents' house for two or three months. She did as she was told.

Tolerated and beaten

In Nepal, a woman has to be invited into her husband's home. She may not cross the threshold without being asked. Bishnu waited for her husband to invite her back, but he never came. Instead, it was as if she had never existed. He married a new woman, had children and forgot about Bishnu.

Nepalese woman in the kitchen
Nepalese women are very dependent on their husbandsImage: picture-alliance / Godong

Bishnu had no other choice but to stay with her parents. Today, she still lives in a small room at the top of the house that used to belong to her father and now belongs to her brothers.

She shares the room with her unmarried sister. Their brothers and their brothers' sons often beat the two as they said "useless" women.

The long road to legal representation

A few years ago, Bishnu and her sister heard about the "Legal Aid and Consultancy Center." Since then, the two elderly women regularly set out on foot to make the two-hour journey to speak with lawyers who fight for the rights of destitute women.

"When I first met them, I used to offer them a seat," said their lawyer Anita Chapagain Sapkota. "They didn't dare take the liberty of sitting down."

Goddess Lakshmi
The goddess Lakshmi is the deity of wealthImage: picture-alliance / dpa

Slowly, the two women are gaining a little confidence. Their chances of going to court to gain a portion of their father's and former husband's inheritance are improving. During the last few years, the legal status of women in Nepal has changed to their advantage.

However, there is still a long way to go before Nepal's reality matches the aspirations of equal rights as written on the lawyers' notes - and this in a country where the deity of wealth is a woman, the goddess Lakshmi. Nonetheless, Hinduism favors the male. Perhaps Nepalese men have to fear that society will go through significant social changes due to the new property rights granted to women.

Author: Katharina Borchardt
Editor: Sabina Casagrande