By Rabin Malla | Project Leader
Background:
Women in Nepal have low status within the family and society. Although the constitution offers women equal educational opportunities, many social, economic, and cultural factors contributed to lower enrollment and higher dropout rates for girls. Illiteracy, early marriage, poverty imposed the greatest hindrance to enhancing equal opportunity and status for women. The decade long armed conflict in Nepal escalated the status of women to more vulnerability. These influences underlie the migration process in Nepal and increase the vulnerability of young women and girls to trafficking and sexual abuse. The girls and women, to save their lives were compelled to leave their home places and migrate into cities, especially Kathmandu to seek sustainable livelihoods and secure future. Lacking education, skills and knowledge, these ignorant girls and women from villages are pushed to the entertainment sector and are obliged to perform any tasks they are asked to, for the survival imperatives. The dance bars, massage and cabin restaurant opened in an unmanaged way in different parts of Kathmandu has the higher trend of involving these girls as sex workers for profit making.
Raksha Nepal in its working year of 8 has done several activities for the protection and dignified survival of these women. RN when established a women shelter in 2009, has always been realizing the need of shelter for the children of these women too.
Ideally, every child needs to belong to a stable, secure, and loving family. It is a widely-accepted value that children should be provided care and protection so that they can grow and develop. It is also an internationally accepted value. However, due to a number of reasons- natural and human-induced-we are not always able to translate this ‘intention’ into a reality.
When there is a situation of failure or unavailability of family care, the state is obliged to proved appropriate institutional care for neglected, separated or abandoned children. Nepal has accepted this.
However, a lack of planned and proper family and other institutional care system has forced many children in Nepal to resort to the streets, illegal works and female child when they reach a certain age the easy way of earning for them is prostitution. Some big children of these women live in callous and wretched conditions that a civilized state cannot imagine for human beings.
Raksha Nepal in its own initiation has started the shelter home for the children of women who are sexually harassed and exploited. These children are born without the recognition of their father and have no appropriate place to live and food to eat. These mothers are not even capable of fulfilling the fundamental requirement of their children the other educational rights of the children are still to be touched by them. Realizing this scenario of children and keeping the main goal of the organization to protect the target group from the trap to prostitution, RN has put forwarded their step but their single effort is not sufficient they need the joint effort and help of government other non-governmental organization and individual.
