Gender Equality and Nepal’s Citizenship Rights for Women
By Swarnima Shrestha, +SocialGood Connector, Development Communications Specialist, and Women’s rights advocate
Growing up in a country that was always in a transition — I have seen drastic changes in the political and social systems in Nepal. Many times, the society in Nepal surprises me (positively). Though it mostly is a traditional culture, I also have realized Nepali society is very resilient and welcoming of change.
I grew up during the period of Maoist insurgency — a decade long internal conflict from 1996 to 2006, which took the lives of 17,000 people. This was followed by the royal massacre in 2001 — when all of the immediate members of the royal family were killed in a family feud and the throne was passed down to the monarch’s brother. In 2006, a not so popular king was overthrown by a peaceful people’s movement. By 2008, Nepal was a republic leaving behind a centuries-old monarchy. Then, there were a couple of constituent assembly elections, a couple of above 7 Richter scale earthquakes, and a new constitution in 2015.
Within the years of political transformation, one of the social changes that grew was the women’s rights movement. Women and girls today are able to practice the rights and freedom that a few decades ago was unheard of in Nepal. There are more women today in Nepal’s workforce than ever before — and they are holding important positions. The president of the country currently is a woman and every day women from across the country are breaking gender norms.
Women in rural areas have formed women’s groups and work together to solve many issues locally — which has become an exemplary development practice for the world. The new political system definitely provided a suitable environment for these changes to thrive. The new constitution has made some noticeable strides for gender equality — such as the reservation of 33% seats in federal and provincial parliaments for women; the criminalization of violence against women based on any cultural, religious, or traditional practices; equal property rights for men and women; and rights for citizens to choose non-binary gender in their citizenship.
However, despite all the social movement, political changes, and change in policy and practice, Nepal still has a long way to go to achieve gender equality. One of the biggest draw backs of the constitution drafted in 2015 is that it failed to provide equal citizenship rights to women. This clearly contradicts many international conventions signed by Nepal — such the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Not only did this provision curtail women’s right to transfer citizenship in an equal capacity as men, but due to a lack of clear terminology, it does not resolve the problems for children of single mothers.
Even with so many progressive changes, Nepal remains one of the 27 countries in the world which differentiates between women’s and men’s citizenship rights. Due to this, so many (single) women are not able to provide citizenship to their children who remain devoid of the benefits provided by the state — only because their mothers are considered less of a citizen than their non-present father.
This disparity in the constitution itself remains the biggest challenge for women to gain an equal status as a citizen of Nepal. And it is always the women who remain at the lowest social and economic ranking in the society that are affected the most by this problem — the women who are abandoned by their husbands and families, women who are raped, who are made false promises of marriage, and whose partners have passed away. Innocent children become unable to receive the basic facilities and their lawful rights as a natural citizen of the country, just because their mother cannot pass down the citizenship rights to them. Without the change in this law, it is futile to talk about the big changes and celebrate other victories of gender equality in the country.
