Nepal: A Gender View Of The Armed Conflict And The Peace .
04Nepal: a gender viewof the armed conflict and thepeace process.María Villellas AriñoJune 2008
Peacebuilding Papers (Quaderns de Construcció de Pau) is a publication of theSchool for a Culture of Peace (Escola de Cultura de Pau). Its objective is to disseminate the research conducted in this institution on peacebuilding and to bring itcloser to the interested public. These research papers will follow three basic linesof work. First, they will offer academic analyses of a variety of topical issues.A second series of documents will make proposals to facilitate intervention byactors involved in the various aspects of peacebuilding. Finally, monographs willanalyse current armed conflicts, situations of tension, peace processes or postwar rehabilitation processes, based on field work by researchers from the Schoolfor a Culture of Peace.
QUADERNS DE CONSTRUCCIÓ DE PAU Nº 4Nepal: a gender view of the armed conflict and the peace process.3INDEX1. Introduction.2. The gender dimension in the armed conflict in Nepal.2.1. The consequences of the armed conflict from a gender perspective.2.2. Women combatants.3. The peace process in Nepal.4. Looking to the future: challenges for a post-war rehabilitation process froma gender perspective.Bibliography .5678101215
QUADERNS DE CONSTRUCCIÓ DE PAU Nº 4Nepal: a gender view of the armed conflict and the peace process.4ABSTRACT:Nepal is going through a period that is crucial to its future. After two years of along and not always easy peace process, important reforms are beginning in anattempt to lay the basis of a new society, tackling some of the structural causesthat led to the outbreak of the armed conflict. Nepali women have been deeplyaffected by this armed conflict, and, as with many other conflicts, its origin andcourse have had a notable gender dimension. Various factors provide evidence ofthis dimension, such as the use of gender violence or the large number of womencombatants in the Maoist ranks, as well as the fact that the negotiation processwhich has led to the signing of the peace agreement largely excluded women.The purpose of this paper is to offer an analysis of the armed conflict and peaceprocess Nepal is going through from a gender standpoint, analysing this situationfrom a feminist point of view. With this intention, the armed conflict that tookplace between 1996 and 2006 in Nepal is analysed from a gender perspective,paying particular attention to the consequences of the war and women’s activeinvolvement in it. Secondly, the peace process that put an end to the armed conflict is analysed, concerning the negotiations and the involvement of civil societyand the international community from a gender standpoint. Finally, some of themost important challenges to be faced so that the post-war rehabilitation processtakes place in the most inclusive and least discriminatory way possible, givingroom for broad transformations in order to put an end to the exclusion of Nepaliwomen, are noted.
QUADERNS DE CONSTRUCCIÓ DE PAU Nº 4Nepal: a gender view of the armed conflict and the peace process.1. Introduction1epal is going through a time that is crucial to its future. After two yearsNof a long and not always easy peace process, important reforms arebeginning in an attempt to lay the basis of a new society to tackle some of thestructural causes that led to the outbreak of the armed conflict. Nepal hasthe opportunity to create a new, inclusive society putting an end to the socialand political discrimination that gave rise to the conflict. The armed conflictwhich pitched the Nepali government against the armed wing of the Maoistparty CPN-M, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began in 1996 after theMaoists took up arms in order to overthrow the monarchical regime andestablish a Maoist republic. The absence of democracy in a country affectedby poverty, feudalism and inequality was at the bottom of this conflict whichwent on almost uninterruptedly over a decade. At the end of April 2006,King Gyanendra decreed the reopening of the Nepali parliament after severalweeks of strong social protests which cost around twenty people their lives.Parliament had remained closed after the King suspended all its activities inFebruary 2005 in his own coup d’état, through which he assumed all Statepowers. The protests that led to the overthrow of Gyanendra were organisedby a coalition bringing together the seven main democratic opposition partiesand the Maoist armed opposition group. The most immediate consequencesof the end of monarchical power were that the Maoist group unilaterallydeclared a ceasefire, initially lasting three months, which was seconded daysafterwards by the provisional government that was formed following thereopening of the parliament. An agreement was signed in November 2006putting an end to 10 years of an armed conflict, which left a legacy of 13,000dead and 200,000 displaced persons.Nepali women have been deeply affected by this armed conflict, and, as withmany other conflicts, its origin and course had a notable gender dimension.Various factors have provided evidence of this dimension, such as the use ofgender violence or the large number of women combatants in the Maoist ranks,as well as the fact that the negotiation process led to the signing of a peaceagreement that largely excluded women.The purpose of this study is to offer an analysis of the armed conflict andpeace process Nepal is going through from a gender perspective, analysingthis situation from a feminist point of view. Removing the mask of apparentneutrality from armed conflicts and peace processes, concealing as it does logicof power and exclusion, means demonstrating that the reality of women is muchmore complex and diverse. Magallón includes some of the central elementsmaking up the feminist standpoint,2 in research:The questions raised and pursued by feminist research begin from astandpoint rooted in women’s experiences, always based on the complexityinvolved in recognising that there is no “experience of woman”, but ratherwomen’s experiences [ ]. This implicitly assumes the lack of neutralityof problems and is equivalent to stating [ ] that behind every problemis a subject who considers it as such. [ ] a feminist point of view reactscritically to the fact that many of the questions and research that menhave formulated and pursued concerning women have been intendedto control, exploit and manipulate them. It consequently suggests that1 This paper is the result of research carried out in Nepal in March 2008 by the researcher from the Escola de Cultura de PauMaría Villellas Ariño, in which she held several interviews with representatives of the Government, the political parties andNepali civil society, as well as the international community. At the express wish of the interviewees, none of them has been quoted.2 The concept of the “feminist standpoint” has basically been developed by Donna Haraway, a feminist theorist who hasargued the position that knowledge is situated and embodied; that is, it must necessarily be partial, locatable and critical(Haraway 2007: 328, 329), as opposed to scientific currents claiming that the origin of a problem is not important.She advocates situating the subject (researcher) on the same plane as the object (person being researched) in order todemonstrate the subject’s interference in the research (Magallón 1998: 50). Only by recognising and making clear that allviews of reality are partial can a more objective view of it be achieved.5
QUADERNS DE CONSTRUCCIÓ DE PAU Nº 4Nepal: a gender view of the armed conflict and the peace process.6the search for explanations and theoriesshould serve women rather than meetingthe demands of institutions or welfaredepartments. (Magallón 1998: 49, 50)Meanwhile, adopting the gender perspective involvesmaking it clear that the differences between menand women are a social construct resulting from theunequal power relationships that have historicallybeen established. Gender as a category of analysis isintended to demonstrate the historical and situatednature of sexual differences. Analysing armedconflicts without taking the gender dimension intoaccount means carrying out partial, incompleteanalyses, leaving causes and consequences toone side, and taking the experience of only partof the population – men – and universalisingit. The gender perspective seeks to expose thispartiality. Therefore, analysing this process froma gender standpoint becomes very important, asthis discrimination can be found at the root of thearmed conflict in Nepal and has been present notonly throughout the conflict but also in the shapingof the peace process that has put an end to it. Italso makes it possible to highlight the importanceof not leaving other discrimination, which has alsobeen central in configuring the social and powerstructure in the country, outside the analysis. Manyfeminist theorists, particularly those from the areaof post-colonial studies, have highlighted the needto analyse gender discrimination alongside othertypes of exclusion, such as those related to ethnicgroup or social class (Fraser 1995; Cockburn2007: 101), which, in the case of Nepal, becometremendously important.After this introduction, the text is structured inthree parts. Firstly, the armed conflict that tookplace between 1996 and 2006 in Nepal is analysedfor these purposes from a gender perspective, payingparticular attention to the consequences of the warand women’s active involvement in it. Secondly, thepeace process that put an end to the armed conflictis analysed, concerning the negotiations and theinvolvement of civil society and the internationalcommunity, from a gender standpoint. Finally, someof the most important challenges to be faced sothat the post-war rehabilitation process takes placein the most inclusive and least discriminatory waypossible, giving room for broad transformationsin order to put an end to the exclusion of Nepaliwomen, are noted.2. The gender dimension in the armed conflict in Nepalhe armed conflict that took place betweenT1996 and 2006 was deeply gendered, not onlyconcerning its consequences, but also involvingits origin, the ideologies underlying it and thediscourse generated around it, both by the partiesconfronting one another and in the analyses carriedout in politics and in academic research.When it comes to analysing an armed conflictfrom a gender perspective, the clearest dimensionfor the application of this analysis and the onethat usually generates least controversy concernsthe consequences. The research and literatureon armed conflict has been gradually – althoughstill insufficiently – incorporating analysis of thedifferent effects contemporary armed conflictshave on men and women as a result of the genderrelationships occurring in any society (Cockburn2007; Anderlini 2007; Giles and Hyndman 2004).Despite the fact that the majority of the researchcarried out on the armed conflict in Nepal hasomitted the gender dimension, there are somestudies which have included it, basically analysingthe issue of women’s participation in the PLAand the impact the armed conflict has had onwomen. Analyses of other issues demonstrating theimportance of this dimension in the development ofthe conflict have not been so plentiful, however. Itmust be highlighted that in Nepal, both the work ofwomen’s organisations and feminist activism havetaken place above all in the area of development,and only recently has there been a notable interestin incorporating the gender dimension into theanalysis of the armed conflict. It must be pointedout that, after the end of the armed conflict, andassociated with the claims made by differentwomen’s groups calling for more space in thepeace negotiations and in the political institutionscharged with leading the transition, more researchcentres, NGOs and international organisations haveredoubled their efforts to give this issue greatervisibility.As Tamang (2002: 162) points out, the heterogeneityof Nepali society has also been shown in the genderstructure. Nepal has been characterised by havingmultiple gender norms, something clearly connectedwith the ethnic and caste divisions in the country,It is clear that not all women in Nepal have beensequestered in the realm of the domestic, norhas wage-labour, business and other realms of“the public” been uniformly imagined only asmasculine; neither has the sexuality of womenbeen consistently and narrowly regimented.
QUADERNS DE CONSTRUCCIÓ DE PAU Nº 4Nepal: a gender view of the armed conflict and the peace process.So any analysis made of what the gender dimensionto this conflict has been must take into account theplural situation of Nepali women.3 A second factorthat must be taken into account is the fact that87% of the female population of the country live inrural areas, with the proportion of women makingup the rural population greater than that of men(Bhadra, Shrestha and Thapa 2007: 107). Giventhe eminently rural nature of the armed conflict inNepal, this factor is vitally important in analysingthe impact differentiated in gender terms.2.1. The consequences of the armed conflict from agender perspectives has already been pointed out, when analysingAthe consequences of the armed conflict itis advisable to adopt the gender perspective inorder to offer a more complete picture of them,coming as close as possible reality. The studiesthat have been carried out in Nepal by differentorganisations, basically linked to the area of humanrights, demonstrate how these consequences havebeen demonstrated in different ways. The first andclearest is that of sexual violence. Despite the factthat this issue has not yet received enough attentionand still needs to be documented more extensively(IHRICON 2006), there is some data on it makingit possible to state that sexual violence has beenused as a weapon and war strategy by all partiesinvolved in the armed conflict with importantconsequences for the lives and health of Nepaliwomen. There are several sources that include thissituation, most importantly the study published in2006 by IHRICON Sexual Violence in the “People’sWar” or that carried out by Gautam, Baskota andManchanda (2003) Where there are no men amongothers. The publicity international organisationslike Amnesty International and the Geneva Centrefor the Democratic Control of Armed Forces havegiven to this situation should also be underlined.All the studies coincide in noting that, despite thefact that cases of sexual violence perpetrated byall parties in the conflict have been documented,a large proportion of them have been committedby the State security forces, and, to a much lesserextent by the PLA,In Nepal, rape and other forms of sexualviolence committed by security officialsduring operations, in custody and at checkpoints were often been reported during thearmed conflict. ( ) On the other side of the3 Tamang notes some examples that would take account of this multiplicityof gender norms. For example, orthodox Hindu groups have placed a specialemphasis on the sexual purity of women, while the Sherpa and Thakali communities have taken pride in women’s capabilities in the business sphere in thesecommunities. Meanwhile, the Burmese-Tibetan groups who live in the north ofthe country practise polyandry.conflict, it has also been reported that theMaoist rebels also used rape on a number ofoccasions. (IHRICON 2006:3)Meanwhile, the studies carried out also coincidein noting a very frequent pattern concerning theexercise of violence by the State security forcesthat involved accusing the women who were victimsof this sexual violence of being in some way linkedto the Maoists, either as combatants, members ofpolitical structures or providing some other kind ofsupport. It must be added that, although it is true,as has already been pointed out, that the Maoistsalso carried out sexual violence, the existenceof strict codes of conduct in the armed group inorder to prevent misbehaviour, including that ofa sexual nature (Gautam et. al. 2003: 112), mayhave contributed to the lower incidence of this kindof violence. In addition, the fact that the presenceof women in both the armed PLA group and theCPN-M political structures has been considerable,has probably had a direct impact on the use ofsexual violence being less frequent.4The consequences of the armed conflict that arerelevant for gender analysis are not limited only tothe issue of sexual violence, they are much broader innature and refer to the effect the conflict has had onmen and women and, as a result, on the relationshipsbetween them, particularly power relationships.However, these impacts of the armed conflict havenot been so widely documented. Armed conflictsalways generate important transformations in thesocial structure of the places where they happen.This has also occurred in the case of Nepal where,as well as these transformations, there have beenoutstanding changes in social norms and customswhich are particularly relevant from a genderpoint of view. Taking into account the situation ofexclusion and discrimination historically suffered byNepali women, these changes are hugely importantas they have called into question the gender normsthat have traditionally governed relations betweenmen and women in the country.Some examples of these social consequences andtransformations would be the increase in the numberof households headed by single women as a resultof the enforced or voluntary displacement of mencaused by the conflict, or the phenomenon knownas “conflict wives” referring to women marryingsoldiers deployed in a certain area and thenabandoned to their fate when these soldiers weremoved to another area of the country (IHRICON2006). This phenomenon was particularly important4 Almost 4,000 women were verified by the United Nations as Maoist combatantsafter the signing of the peace agreement. The issue of women’s participation inthe CPN-M and its various armed and political structures is dealt with at greaterlength in the section “Women’s participation in the armed conflict” in this paper.7
QUADERNS DE CONSTRUCCIÓ DE PAU Nº 4Nepal: a gender view of the armed conflict and the peace process.8in the places where there were military barracks andespecially affected teenagers, generating situationswhere these women were financially abandoned andstigmatised. The prevalence of single mothers andwomen has notably increased (IHRICON 2006)in a society for which the family, and particularlymarriage, is one of the basic pillars.2.2. Women combatantsespite the fact that the dominant view of women’sDrelations with armed conflict continues to referto the category of victims, the analysis of theseconflicts from a gender and feminist standpointnecessarily produces a much more complex picturein which women also play an active role.The active participation of women in the armedMaoist opposition group and its political structures,including certain areas of the leadership, hasreceived some attention, particularly from themedia. Despite the growing incorporation of womeninto both regular and irregular armed organisations,their presence in this type of institution continuesto generate both suspicion and surprise, as weare used to dealing with generalised explanationslacking clarification in the context of a collectiveimagination that links the female sex with innatelypacifist attitudes, placing women combatants atthe margin of social expectations or making themthe exceptions who prove the rule.During the c
The purpose of this study is to offer an analysis of the armed conflict and peace process Nepal is going through from a gender perspective, analysing this situation from a feminist point of view. Removing the mask of apparent neutrality from armed conflicts and peace processes, concealing as it does logic
State of gender data in Nepal 6 Opening remarks 6 Panel session on "The state of gender data in Nepal" 8 A. 8 B. 9 C. 9 Linking gender data to the SDGs 11 Challenges and opportunities around CGD for gender issues in Nepal (as presented by different panellists) 13 Exploring civil society and CGD for gender issues in Nepal 15
M/s NMB Bank Limited M/s Nepal Bank Limited M/s NIC Asia Bank Limited M/s Everest Bank Limited M/s Nepal Bangaladesh Bank Limited . 3 Bottlers Nepal (Terai) Limited . Financial Analysis 32 Financial Statement of Bottlers Nepal (Terai) Limited 2074-75 (2017-18) 33-67. 6 6 Bottlers Nepal (Terai) Limited Annual Report 2074-75 VISION, MISSION AND .
grid orthographic drawing 3rd angle top view left view front view left view front view top view top view top view front view right view front view right view top view front view right view front view right view a compilation of drawings for developing the skill to draw in orthographic
accessible and diverse gender information. It is one of a family of knowledge services based at IDS . Other recent publications in the Cutting Edge Pack series: Gender and Care, 2009 Gender and Indicators, 2007 Gender and Sexuality, 2007 Gender and Trade, 2006 Gender and Migration, 2005 Gender and ICTs, 2004 . 6.3.1 Gender mainstreaming .
International based in Nepal for their oversight during the entire study period. This study would not have been completed without support from teams at Recovering Nepal, SPARSHA, Dristi Nepal, Sathi Samuha and Community Support Group. In solidarity, Bishnu Fueal Sharma Executive Director Recovering Nepal
keywords: gender identity bill - gender identity - gender discrimination – equality - human rights - european union law - national law. malta’s gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics act – a shift from a binary gender to a whole new spectrum?
BETWEEN NEPAL BANKERS’ ASSOCIATION AND CONFEDERATION OF NEPALESE INDUSTRIES 30th December 2019, Kathmandu: Nepal Bankers’ Association (NBA) and Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) entered into the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a mutually beneficial
NEPAL IN NEWS Integrated Check-Post (ICP), Biratnagar inaugurated at India-Nepal border Tiger spotted at a record altitude of 3,165 metres in eastern Nepal World’s highest mountain peak ‘Mount Everest’ has become taller by 0.86m, as per a survey conducted jointly by Nepal and China.
