The Women's Foundation of Nepal (WF)
Candace Telfer at the Women's Foundation of Nepal shelter. |
I arrived in Nepal with a very academic understanding of the political and human rights situation here. I had read the newly ratified Interim Constitution - an infant document outlining the proceedings of a new democratic system and guaranteeing basic human rights and equality - and I knew that despite this most laws in the country remain discriminatory, denying women basic rights like holding property and citizenship. I understood that ten years of conflict and insurgency had created an environment where women and children have been subjected to desperate poverty, rape, exploitation and prostitution. While Nepal garners very little media attention in the west, still this information is all readily accessible to anyone who takes the time to look.
What I couldn't learn from the web - what only time spent in a place can give you - is the human face of all these issue. All of the documents I've read, here and at home in Canada, become only an abstract background to the process of coming to know and love people who have survived all of these issues and who are, not victims, but strong, loving, wonderful people. Each issue is a case in the Women's Foundation files; each case is a person at the shelter or working at the production centre. Each person is now a friend who wants to share whatever they can with me, and is already saddened by the thought of my return to Canada.
The Women's Foundation of Nepal (WF) is an NGO-extraordinaire. Committed to improving the lives of women and children in Nepal, the organization provides shelters for victims of violence (domestic and conflict-inflicted), free health clinics for carpet-factory workers (those forced by extreme poverty into what is basically slave labour), and free legal counsel to women who have been victimized or denied marital rights. It also operates production centres where women who would otherwise be destitute are trained in income-generating skills. I spend every day in the tiny office that is the nerve-centre of this organization; I drink tea and share rice and make jokes with the incredible woman who runs the Women's Foundation - but when I actually stop to think about what is being done here I can't help but be awed and humbled.
My work this summer has had two aspects. Most of my time is spent in the office, working with the case histories of the women and children at the shelter and compiling English translations of case files with the WF lawyers. I work on grant proposals and research reports, and I am putting together a document called "The Stories of Women" based on the current cases WF has before the Nepali courts.
The remainder of my time is spent at the WF shelter for women and children, where I teach English, play games and just hang out with the residents. My first few weeks here I found emotionally really hard because I would spend hours reading case histories - stories of such suffering and trauma - and then find myself at the shelter being hugged and made a fuss of by the very people in those case histories.
I read, for example, the file of a 17-year-old girl named Krishna who the WF is representing in a case against certain members of the government military. When Krishna was 14, she was forced by the Maoist army to attend a communist rally in her village, as were all the teenagers. The government army (who, in the West, media reports tended to present as the "good guys") raided the meeting. Krishna was dragged out into the forest by a group of about 10 soldiers who raped her for hours, until she was unconscious and couldn't walk because of a spinal injury inflicted by the torture. How do I reconcile this awful story on paper with the beautiful, laughing girl who pinches my cheeks every time she sees me? Then there is Suraj, an 11-year-old boy who came to the shelter just after I arrived in Kathmandu. His father - an abusive drunk - tried to drown him in the river outside their village. His mother brought him to our shelter here, and has gone herself to one of WF's hidden shelters because she is so afraid of her husband. With me, Suraj is a typical little boy who wants to show off his karate moves and wrestle with the other boys at the shelter, and who runs to grab my hand whenever I arrive at the shelter. It's too heartbreaking to think that this lovely little boy could have been floating in the river right now.
The Interim Constitution guarantees the women of Nepal equal rights, but the current laws - laws which deny women the right to hold property or to be recognized as citizens without their husbands'
permission - are way behind. Further, there is no will within institutions like the police to enforce these rights. The main purpose of my research here is to look at this contradiction - between the lip-service paid to rights and the actual situation of women. The lawyers at WF are engaged in all sorts of creative ways to get around the lack of laws - for example, there is no law here against domestic violence - in order to secure basic support for women and children.
This place provides a fascinating insight into how law can transform society - by seeing the ways a marginalized segment of society struggles in the face of lack of law. The issues we are dealing with here are not exotic or unique to this country - you don't have to look beyond downtown Toronto to see women and children victimized by violence and exploitation - but what has been truly educational for me is learning how to address these issues with no structural, institutional framework that signals society's distaste for them.
But more than anything else, I think what this internship has really brought home for me is the strength of the human spirit. These people have been so marginalized and disadvantaged, and have to fight for so much that I take for granted, and yet they find so much joy in life. They don't hesitate to take an opportunity to sing or dance, or tell a joke, or share a simple meal. The insights that this experience has given me - sometimes uncomfortably - into myself are as profound and educational as the case work and research has been. I consider myself truly blessed to be here.
