Miscellaneous
Single women present charter of demands
Single women from across the country have issued a charter demanding economic empowerment and social justice.Single women from across the country have issued a charter demanding economic empowerment and social justice.
They appealed for an end to poverty, discrimination and injustice faced by single women and their dependants in the country.
“Many young widows face social stigma and violence such as sexual exploitation and are forced to involve in informal sectors. Our demands revolve around these issues and urge the government to find ways to make single women economically independent,” said Lily Thapa, founder of Women for Human Rights, a single women’s group.
According to the census, there are 498,606 widows in the country. Many of them lost their husbands during the decade-long conflict.
It is estimated that around 2,000 women lost their husbands to the devastating earthquakes last year.
Single women usually live in substandard housing units with lower income. There is no segregated data on the property owned by single women.
But the fact that only 19.17 percent Nepali women own property proves single women have little access to property. Eighty-six percent widows in Nepal are illiterate.
Despite the bleak situation, the issue of single women remains one of the most neglected, said Thapa.
Nepal has signed and ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol, which mentions ‘No Discrimination on the basis of Marital Status’, and the ICW Johannesburg Resolution (2009).
Single women complain that the state has not been able to guarantee all the rights ensured in these international conventions.
“We call upon the government to ensure that rights of single women are mainstreamed in national policies and programmes through consultation with single women’s groups around the country,” said Saru Subedi, a single woman from Rasuwa.
The charter urges the government to prepare legislations or amend the laws and policies to provide single women easy access to the citizenship certificate and other legal documents, especially for those who lost them in the disaster.