<img width="3935" height="2686" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016118/636d14839c7e80680e0a997fjpeg.jpg" alt=""/>The Zonta Club of Kathmandu, an international service organization with the mission of advancing the status of women, launched a campaign on 25 November to raise awareness on the importance of speaking up against domestic violence, work/public place harassment, and child marriage. Coinciding with the UN’s 16 days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, it also launched four short films and will be staging a series of street plays in Kathmandu starting 1 December.

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Zonta's anti-GBV campaign

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d122b9c7e80680e0a98c2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"/><figcaption>Young mothers with their children in Muktikot where child marriage has become more prevalent as subsistence farmers cope with a succession of droughts and floods that have destroyed harvests. All photos: SONAM LAMA</figcaption></figure>“Mulai kyai thaa bhayaanai,” murmurs Birjaman, pain and fatigue etched on his wizened face. He has just made a steep 3-hour climb from his village of Muktikot to a pharmacy carrying his semi-conscious daughter-in-law, Reti.She has post-partum haemorrhage, and has not stopped bleeding. The clinic managed to save her life, but the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">young mother</a> lost her three-month foetus. Reti was married off at 16, and at 22 already has two children.The midwife says the miscarriage was due to weakness and heavy workload during pregnancy. Reti’s husband is working in India, and she has to do all the household work, raise the children, take care of the livestock, and fetch water herself.At the pharmacy, Gopal Singh says he sees cases like this often. This is the nearest medical stop for the predominantly Dalit village of Muktikot. He says, "This is nothing new around here, we get miscarriages like this daily. Many do not make it. Young mothers are not physically mature for childbearing and couples do not use contraceptives."Marriage before age 20 is punishable by law in Nepal but it is still common. Low female literacy, poverty, discrimination and cultural norms play a role, but <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/child-marriage-in-Nepal,3863" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">child marriage</a> has become more prevalent as of late, as subsistence farmers cope with a succession of droughts and floods that have destroyed harvests.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d122f9c7e80680e0a98c3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Last winter, western Nepal suffered a 6-month drought that was followed by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/wildfires-ravage-nepal-mountains/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wildfires that raged for months</a>. Then, two weeks ago the region was hit by a freak post-monsoon storm that destroyed standing crops. Farmers had been hopeful for a good harvest because of plentiful rain this monsoon, but <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/post-monsoon-rain-ruins-nepals-crops/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the unseasonal downpour</a> on 18-19 October unleashed landslides and floods and dashed their hopes.Scientists say global warming has added to the moisture content in the atmosphere, triggering <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/himalayan-floods-a-sign-of-worse-to-come/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">extreme weather</a> with erratic monsoons, frequent droughts and cloudbursts. Families in food-deficit western Nepal, already in a precarious situation, have been pushed over the edge.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d12329c7e80680e0a98c4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="600"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Already stricken by poverty and caste discrimination, the impact of climate crisis means that more parents now marry off their young daughters, who in turn end up risking their lives due to early pregnancy and poor diet."My father remarried after my mother died, and he married me off at 16 saying I would have a good life after marriage," recalls Reti.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-change-is-a-disaster-in-the-nepal-himalaya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Climate crisis is a disaster in the Nepal Himalaya</a>, Sonam Choekyi LamaSubi, 16, is also from the same village. She lost her new born baby two days after home delivery three months ago. She had not had a single pre-natal check-up, was too <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-epidemic-of-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">undernourished</a> to breast feed properly, and her baby eventually died of hunger.Subi herself bled for more than two weeks after the birth, and even though there were no men to carry her to the health post, she survived. She is still weak and anemic. Subi’s friend Suna is also 16 and expecting her first baby. Afraid that she may have the same complication, she walked five hours to a pharmacy to get iron tablets.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d12349c7e80680e0a98c5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="994"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d12389c7e80680e0a98c6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="994">Locals gathered in Muktikot. At least one member from each family is currently working in India.Suna’s mother Rauthi married her to a neighbour’s son because the family’s harvest failed after a long drought. She has seven children, all of whom have dropped out of school either to work in India, or to get married and raise their own children. The husbands of both Suna and Subi are also away in India, working to augment family income.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/women-and-water/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Women and water</a>, EditorialMost families here have at least one member working in India, and the income they send home was what helped them survive when crops failed. But many Nepalis lost their jobs during the pandemic, so even this fallback option was not there for the past two years.“Life here is tough, and getting tougher. Early marriage is the norm, since it is easier to get our daughters married, so we do not have to feed them,” says Rauthi, two of whose seven children are handicapped and cannot go to school, or work.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d123b9c7e80680e0a98c7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d123f9c7e80680e0a98c8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125">Children in Muktikot have to walk across steep terrain for three hours roundtrip everyday to go to school.Nearly 40% of girls in Nepal marry before they are 18, while some 14% give birth to their first child before their 19th birthday. Moreover, children of Dalit communities are at higher risk of being <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/too-young-to-marry/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">married young</a> because of poverty, discrimination and limited access to resources.Although child marriage is less common than it used to be, it is still prevalent despite laws banning it. Now, the economic crisis due to the pandemic and the climate emergency has exacerbated the situation.This is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-curse-of-being-new-mothers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">evident in Bajura</a>, a district in Nepal with one of the worst development indicators with more than 70% of people living below the poverty line, while Nepal’s national average is 26%.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d12429c7e80680e0a98c9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Frequent droughts and crop failures in recent years have further impoverished Bajura’s subsistence farmers. As it is, only 9% of the land in the mountainous district is arable, with a mere 1.42% with irrigation facility. Crop yields of barley, wheat, maize and millet harvests have dropped sharply in the past 10 years.Every year the district faces a shortage of 11,000 tonnes food grain, and a World Food Programme (WFP) bulletin classified 85% of the population being <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-pandemic-of-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">food insecure</a>. Muktikot is one of the villages classified as very vulnerable to deficient nutrition.Even in years with normal harvest, food grown here is enough only to feed families for three months in year. The result is out-migration for work, malnutrition, forced child marriage, high maternal and infant mortality.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6ptI6TJqUgWith farmers so dependent on rain-fed agriculture, their fragile existence is even more precarious because of climate-related extreme weather. A 30-year precipitation data at the nearby Martadimet station shows that total annual rainfall has fallen, there is little winter snow, and even that tends to come with destructive storms.“Rainfall has always been unpredictable in these parts, but these days there is very little winter snow that we need for the spring marsi paddy and buckwheat,” says 65-year-old farmer Brija Bahadur Bam. “And when it does rain, it is so heavy that it washes away the crops.”This all adds up to <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/water-table-of-kathmandu-valley-falling-fast-recharge-to-replenish,4100" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lower groundwater tables</a>, which means even perennial springs have gone dry. Indira Kandel of the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology says that the rain and snow is then not enough to replenish the aquifers.The link between drought and child marriage has been proven by research in India. Reetika Revathy Subramanian, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, has studied how drought-induced migration in the caste-ridden Marathwada region of India has increased underage marriage.“The decision for a girl to marry gets shaped by a web of intersecting factors, including poverty, access to education, social pressure and norms, harassment and intimidation, which is further exacerbated by disaster,” she explains.In Nepal’s Bajura district, too, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/dalits-disasters-and-discrimination/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dalit community is more vulnerable</a> to the impact of the climate crisis on agriculture than more privileged groups. “Child marriage is rampant here but it is more likely in families hit hard by food crises and with many children,” says Birban BK of the Nepal Climate Change Support Program (NCCSP).The answer lies in making irrigation available to farmers so they are not affected by erratic rainfall, which is why the NCCSP prioritised building irrigation canals and flood-prevention gabion walls in Bajura.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d12469c7e80680e0a98cajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1510" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Muktikot got its name from Maoists guerrillas during the insurgency who wanted to show that the Dalit village had been liberated from caste discrimination. The war has been over for 16 years, but life is, if anything, worse for the Dalits here.Village officials and locals believe that the relocation of the entire community is the only way out. Plans are afoot for the rehabilitation of villagers to settlements up the mountains to an altitude of 2,500-3,000m where rainfall is more regular. They can grow cash crops like walnut and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-parliamentarians-apple-grove/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">apple</a>, but will be needing help accessing the market.“These practices could be diversification of livelihoods and income sources through adopting climate-resilient cash crops, connecting farmers to the markets, promoting agro-forestry and use of bioengineering for infrastructure development,” says Monika Upadhyay of WFP Nepal.Even among Dalits, it is the women from the community who are even more affected by the climate crisis. The shortage of water <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Recharging-the-mountains,3465" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">adds to their daily drudgery</a>, because they have to walk longer to reach springs that are still functioning.Says Radha Wagle of the Climate Change Management Division at the Ministry of Environment: “In Bajura and other districts, we need climate-resilient and gender-responsive plans because women are more adversely affected by socio-economic, geographical and climatic vulnerability.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d12499c7e80680e0a98cbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="994"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Nepal aims to implement these measures at local levels by 2030, the same year the government has set to end <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-child-marriages-spike-during-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">child marriage</a>. But given that the practice is still rampant, it is an ambitious target.Says Subramanian: “It is important to strengthen child marriage prevention groups, village-level committees to work closely with vulnerable families including women and girls in particular.”At nearby Radhamata Secondary School, only 13 of the 113 students in Grade 10 are unmarried. Manshova Buddha, 17, is one of them. She says: “With so many of my friends already married off by their parents, I also feel the pressure. But I am not going to give up on my dreams.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/educating-girls-for-climate-action/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Educating girls for climate action</a>, Helen GrantSome names have been changed.This report was supported by the Road to COP26 campaign implemented by the British Council and funded by UKAID.

How the climate crisis adds to child marriage in Nepal

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141124/636cfbad9c7e80680e0a0b47jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"/><figcaption>Photos: PRATIBHA TULADHAR</figcaption></figure>She towered over me like a lone poplar tree. She was four years older than I was at the time she came to live with us. Sita was the eldest of her siblings and her father had sent her to Kathmandu so she could contribute to the family income.Ten-year-old Sita’s job was to babysit for one of our relatives—two babies watching one another. When a bunch of grapes disappeared, the employers decided to dismiss the babysitter. Sita was just being a child picking and popping into her mouth something she liked the taste of, but she was supposed to be an ‘employee’ and expected to behave like an adult.Her father insisted that she stay in Kathmandu, and so the child remained, moving from one home to another, as employers tired of her antics. One of them had to yank her off the balcony railing, after which, she was sent to ours.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/welcome-to-suburbia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Welcome to suburbia</a>, Pratibha TuladharWhen I asked my mother recently why she had accepted a child as helper, she said it was because she knew that she would be sent somewhere else if not to ours, and that she thought a house with two girls would be safer for her.Sita showed up one afternoon on the motorbike of her former employer at our home on the outskirts of Kathmandu. She was carrying a small bag of clothes. She was wearing a kurta with traces of lint—something I had seen my relative wear before, now altered to fit a 14-year-old.I had met Sita before when I had visited my relatives, a radiant face resting on tall, lean limbs. Her eyes were light brown and her hair the same colour, resting in an array of curls over her forehead and her temples. She did not look much different when she arrived at ours. And neither did she look nervous for someone coming to live in a new place.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/be-water/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">My mother</a> and Nini got busy after her arrival, making arrangements for a bedding of a single mattress, a pillow and a blanket. She would sleep in my room, on the floor. I couldn’t understand the arrangement, but I got used to it.She folded her bedding every morning, arranging it under my bookshelf which hung on the wall. If sometimes she saw me sitting on it with a book between my fingers, she would tell me to get off in fluent Newa: “Maicha! Ana makhu.”Sita made our home hers, quickly. She was expected to bring my sister and me to the bus stop everyday and help Mam run errands. But Mam complained that “the child” delayed her. Clearly, she also made her laugh.Mam, with wisps of gray sticking over her head would sit under a tree in the afternoons, smoking her beedi. On a hot day, she would fall asleep under the tree, and Sita would get to work, poking her ear with a leaf. Furious, Mam would clench her hand into a fist and threaten to hit Sita. “This girl has too much energy. Utauli, chakchaki!”<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141124/636cfbb09c7e80680e0a0b48jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="853">And as if to prove the point, Sita made sure to punctuate our days with events. One morning, as we waited for our school bus to arrive, Sita pointed at the pipal tree and said, “Nests!” And before we knew, she was climbing the tree.“Sita Didi!” we yelled from below, as she scrambled up like she knew the tree branch by branch. When we got into the school bus, I craned my neck to watch her from the window as the bus raced off with us inside. My heart pounding, I caught a glimpse of her stretching one arm to grab the nest.When we stepped off at the bus stand that afternoon, Mam was waiting for us. Sita had been grounded. Upon entering my room, I saw two weaver birds’ nests. One was over a foot long, the other one was smaller. Sita had nailed them to two corners of our room. I dumped my bag on the floor to touch them.“I saw you read about them in your sience book,” she beamed. My science book had a chapter on different kinds of bird nests, one of them had been the weaver bird’s nest.A couple of weeks later, Sita was allowed to go to the bus stand again. As we waited under the pipal tree, my sister wept. She hadn’t finished her homework. Sita pulled out her notebook and hurriedly wrote her homework for her. “There, your teacher won’t scold you now.” She whacked my sister’s head, “Badmass!”Coming home from school was also coming home to Sita’s radiant face. One time, she greeted us with bruises all over her limbs, spiky branches strewn over the front porch. She had climbed a thorny tree to gather firewood for Shivaratri, bringing down fresh branches that would not burn.When my mother exclaimed how terrified she had been that she might fall, Sita reminded her that she had “conquered” a pipal tree. I did not understand my mother’s patience with her.One afternoon, Sita locked herself in the kitchen for hours. When she unlocked the door, she had made aloo achar. She said it was her “especial” for us, the first time she had cooked. The potatoes were raw and I told her the achar was horrible. But my mother ate it, smiling as she did.When Sita turned 15, her father showed up. Mam found her hiding at the dhunge dhara by the hillside. It was time for her to go home. When we returned from school her bedclothes still sat under my bookshelf but the lightness of her presence was missing. It angered me that no one had told me she was leaving, but no one tells a child such things.Sita had been “<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/child-marriage-in-Nepal,3863" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">given away in marriage</a>” after she went back home, we heard. A decade later Sita visited my mother in our home in Maharajganj, when she brought a relative to the Teaching Hospital.“She leaned against the wall the entire time we talked. She was wearing a red cotton sari and had grown much taller and fuller. But she looked tired,” my mother recalls.We haven’t heard from her since, but my mother likes to punctuate our kitchen conversations with Sita anecdotes.Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.

Pratibha Tuladhar

Sita

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121144/636b92f49c7e80680e06f17bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2550" height="1429"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Nepal has had one emergency heaped on top of another for more than a year now. The Covid-19 emergency, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wildfires</a>, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/monsoon-hits-nepal-with-a-bang/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">now floods</a>.Political flux in Kathmandu continues to undermine the state’s ability to respond adequately. But this is nothing new. The most glaring governance failure of Nepal’s rulers for the past decades has been their incompetence in being able to ensure nutrition for its youngest citizens.Be it during the absolute and constitutional monarchy days, the post-democracy period or now, in the new federal system, the state has failed abjectly in its primary responsibility to fulfil the most basic of all human rights – access to adequate food.Nepal did reduce childhood stunting from 57% to 36% in the two decades after 1990. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nearly-half-of-nepali-children-still-malnourished/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">But progress stalled</a> because of the conflict and political upheavals. Nearly a third of Nepali children are still stunted due to lack of adequate food, 12% are wasted, and 24% low weight.The statistics are shocking. Nepal’s hunger hotspots are Far Western Province where 41% of children are stunted, and in Province 2 where 34% of children have low height due to lack of food. A survey in May by Sharecast Initiative and UNICEF shows that one in five families across Nepal <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-eating-less-due-to-lockdown-hardships/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reduced the quantity of meals</a> their children ate during the lockdown.Children have so far been largely spared by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants, but they have become <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/children-are-collateral-damage-in-nepal-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">collateral damage in the pandemic</a>. Schools have been closed for most of the past year, and half the students had no access to distance learning. Immunisation drives against pre-existing killer diseases have been disrupted.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/half-of-nepalis-lost-jobs-in-past-month/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">More than half of Nepalis lost their jobs</a> in the past month amidst the second wave, and loss of household income has led directly to insufficient food for children.Hunger is Nepal’s real national epidemic and rampant malnutrition pre-dated the Covid-19 outbreak. The pandemic has undermined the country’s past gains in battling childhood malnutrition.To meet its UN sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets, Nepal has to reduce stunting well below 15% and wasting and low weight to less than 5% in the next nine years. At the present rate, we will not meet those goals.Horrific as the statistics are, zooming down to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-epidemic-of-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ground level in Dhanusha and Mahottari districts</a> of Province 2, our Saglo Samajtv magazine report this week shows how much worse things have got during the lockdowns.Despite Nepal being declared open-defecation free amidst much fanfare, Dalit and other marginalised communities in Dhanusha and Mahottari do not have toilets. If they do have one, there is no running water or soap. They use the same village pond for both humans and cattle, for cleaning and drinking. Things are not much better in pockets in the western mountains. Gastric infections compound malnutrition.The least the government could do is equitably distribute the ‘nutrition allowance’ allocated for the Dalit families and educate the communities on the basics of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/toilet-trained/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sanitation and hygiene</a>.Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres for severely malnourished children must be set up closer to the communities so that the neediest can access the service. The annual budget on nutrition should be increased so that local health posts have sufficient supplements and micronutrients for new mothers and their children.The government’s Multi-Sector Nutrition Plan has not delivered as expected, tangled up over jurisdiction under the new federal structure. But it could just as easily deploy Female Community Health Volunteers, and local representatives to discourage <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">child marriage</a> that feeds the vicious cycle of malnutrition and high maternal and child deaths.Malnutrition is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/junk-food-is-making-nepali-children-shorter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more than the availability of food</a> and access to clean water, it is also confronting patriarchy, casteism and gender discrimination. It is a result of poor governance, lack of accountability and corruption.But nothing is stopping newly-empowered local governments with technical and financial backing from the centre to now achieve results that Kathmandu’s past centralised governments could not. Training of farmers on climate-smart agriculture, and leasing land to the landless is a good place to start.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/the-face-of-hunger-debt-malnutrition,3604" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Children are hungry</a> because of poverty. Their families are poor because of state neglect. We must draw that causal link between lack of food and failure to deliver it by elected representatives. That is the real scandal the evening news bulletins should be highlighting.

Hunger for governance

<figure><img width="2000" height="1333" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191120/636bef9f4b0ad905ca02efbdjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Girls attending an interaction program. Photos: UNFPA</figcaption></figure>Thirty child marriages took place in one municipality in Sarlahi District during the lockdown earlier this year. This startling fact highlights how <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/more-child-marriages-in-locked-down-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">girls are at particular risk</a> as the Covid-19 crisis impacts Nepal’s economy.    The <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2016/03/23/vow-to-end-child-marriage/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">legal marriage age</a> in Nepal is 20. Globally, girls who marry before 18 are considered <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/too-young-to-marry/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">child brides</a>, yet close to 40% girls under the age of 18 are married in Nepal, making the country one of the worst examples in Asia.  “There were more child marriages than usual in Sarlahi, Dailekh and Surkhet districts during the lockdown,” says Samita Pradhan of the Women's Reproductive Rights Programme at the Centre for Agro-ecology and Development (CAED). “I think people are following their culture — <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/ending-child-marriage-in-Nepal,3864" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">marry your daughters at an early age</a> because they are a burden.”  A survey by the British agency Voluntary Service Overseas (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/sep/07/why-covid-school-closures-are-making-girls-marry-early" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">VSO</a>) shows that 11 out of 152 girls had been married in the four districts during the lockdown period this year. The NGO, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/child-marriages-up-during-nepal-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Room to Read</a> said in May that it had discovered at least seven cases of child marriage during the lockdown. In October, the provincial police office in Lumbini launched a two-week campaign to prevent child marriage after reporting 49 cases in the province in the past three years.  “Children were not going to school, so they had more time and parents might have thought ‘let them go’,” says Pradhan.  The pandemic’s predicted <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/child-marriages-up-during-nepal-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">impact on child marriage</a> is frightening. <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/resource-pdf/Responding_to_COVID-19_Pivoting_the_GPECM_to_the_pandemic.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">A UNFPA estimate in September</a> warned that if Covid-19 causes a one-year average delay in interventions to end child marriage, some 13 million more child marriages will occur over the next decade.  In Nepal, following the 2015 earthquakes, child marriages reportedly rose when increased economic pressure led to more marriages of under-aged boys and girls.  ‘Destruction of houses and property and interruption of livelihoods from the earthquake resulted in additional financial strain. For some parents, this directly related to decisions made to marry daughters early. For some adolescents, decisions to marry revolved around the fulfilment of basic needs, such as food and shelter,’ according to the report, <a href="https://nepal.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/child_marriage_in_humanitarian_settings_in_south_asia.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Child Marriage in Humanitarian Settings in South Asia</a>. Factors for <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/child-marriage-in-Nepal,3863" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">child marriage</a> are similar in most humanitarian situations, says Apekchya Rana Khatri at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Nepal: “One very important driver is the socio-cultural norms and practices, which value girls less. It starts from there.” In Dolakha and Sindhupalchok, the trend of arranged marriages before age 18 had been decreasing before the earthquake. Love marriages and elopements among older adolescents rose after the earthquake. Each area is a unique setting for child marriage, with the level of education, proximity to urban areas, culture and religion playing instrumental roles.  Puja of Godaita Rural Municipality in Sarlahi says she got married during the lockdown and was 20 at the time. A local NGO disputes her age. But Pooja’s father, Raj Kumar says his daughter is ‘marriageable’. “I married two of my daughters only after they reached the age of 20,” says Raj Kumar. “I married my third daughter Puja in March to a man who is working in a foreign country, because they did not ask for a dowry. I could not say no to such an offer because I already have debt to pay and if I have to take further loans for dowry in order to marry my daughters, I will die of debt.”  His reasons for arranging Puja’s marriage echo those often heard from parents of child brides. “I have five daughters and you know how hard it is to marry daughters in our society,” he says.  Financial issues can lead families to push their daughters to get married early, because it is one person less to feed and clothe. However, experts also argue that there is also the norm of having to get girls married before 19. “But the biggest reason for child marriage we could draw after investigating was the economic cause,” says Anju Sah, a gender and sexual reproductive health rights activist in Sarlahi. Parents were also worried about their daughters eloping because of the growing use of smartphones that girls and boys use to meet, chat and sometimes to arrange to elope.  The lockdown also became an incentive to some families as they could easily complete marriage rituals of girls between 16-18 with smaller budgets without inviting a lot of people. “They are mostly illiterate and they often have a hard time figuring out what to do if any kind of problems come their way,” says Sah. Young mothers are unable to birth normal babies, while <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pregnancy and motherhood</a> also takes a toll on their health. Miscarriages are also common among young mothers. When we talked to Puja in November, she had returned from her in-laws’ to live with her parents while she wrote the Grade 11 exams.  “My husband and I don’t have plans to have children until I finish my studies. There is no pressure from my relatives to have kids right now. I am lucky to have a husband who is understanding and supports my studies,” Puja says.  Creating opportunities for families to lessen the impact of the current economic downturn and creating awareness on gender-based violence would go a long way in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/on-air-to-deter-child-marriage/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reducing child marriage</a> says Rana Khatri. “Reopening schools is a key step in eliminating the risk of child marriage during the pandemic.” <figure><img width="2000" height="1333" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191120/636befa24b0ad905ca02efbejpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Girls participate in a workshop about the impacts of child marriage.</figcaption></figure>Lack of evidence In July, Samita Pradhan from Centre for Agro-ecology and Development (CAED) told <a href="https://anchor.fm/nepalnow/episodes/Women-in-the-age-of-COVID-19-ei4hs8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepal Now podcast</a> about 38 child marriages that had occurred in Sarlahi during the lockdown. In September we began to follow up that report.  Sarlahi staff of the NGO confirmed that the marriages took place in just one ward: Godaita-10. But they corrected the number to 30. One of the names they provided was that of Puja, and soon after we contacted Puja and her father, but they both denied that she was 18 when she got married, insisting she had been 20.  We then reached out to municipal officials in Sarlahi. One of them denied that the reported marriages had taken place, while another confirmed that “a large number” had occurred in the ward, but some time prior to the lockdown.  We consulted with an employee of another NGO working in the area, who told us that no child marriages happened in the ward during lockdown. He also said that Puja had not been married, but only engaged. Conflicting information is a shared experience for organisations doing work around child marriage. While parents are aware of the legal marrying age, marriages continue to take place before girls reach the legal age. Official documents providing evidence of their marriage are often missing, which calls for an urgent need to strengthen registration of births/deaths and other vital information.  Some names have been changed. ALSO READ: https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/more-child-marriages-in-locked-down-nepal/ https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/half-of-nepals-girls-may-drop-out-of-school/ https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/

Nepal child marriages spike during pandemic

<figure><img width="2000" height="1333" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be8ac9c7e80680e087874jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Girls attending an interaction program. Photos: UNFPA</figcaption></figure>Thirty child marriages took place in one municipality in Sarlahi District during the lockdown earlier this year. This startling fact highlights how <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/more-child-marriages-in-locked-down-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">girls are at particular risk</a> as the Covid-19 crisis impacts Nepal’s economy.    The <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2016/03/23/vow-to-end-child-marriage/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">legal marriage age</a> in Nepal is 20. Globally, girls who marry before 18 are considered <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/too-young-to-marry/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">child brides</a>, yet close to 40% girls under the age of 18 are married in Nepal, making the country one of the worst examples in Asia.  “There were more child marriages than usual in Sarlahi, Dailekh and Surkhet districts during the lockdown,” says Samita Pradhan of the Women's Reproductive Rights Programme at the Centre for Agro-ecology and Development (CAED). “I think people are following their culture — <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/ending-child-marriage-in-Nepal,3864" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">marry your daughters at an early age</a> because they are a burden.”  A survey by the British agency Voluntary Service Overseas (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/sep/07/why-covid-school-closures-are-making-girls-marry-early" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">VSO</a>) shows that 11 out of 152 girls had been married in the four districts during the lockdown period this year. The NGO, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/child-marriages-up-during-nepal-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Room to Read</a> said in May that it had discovered at least seven cases of child marriage during the lockdown. In October, the provincial police office in Lumbini launched a two-week campaign to prevent child marriage after reporting 49 cases in the province in the past three years.  “Children were not going to school, so they had more time and parents might have thought ‘let them go’,” says Pradhan.  The pandemic’s predicted <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/child-marriages-up-during-nepal-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">impact on child marriage</a> is frightening. <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/resource-pdf/Responding_to_COVID-19_Pivoting_the_GPECM_to_the_pandemic.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">A UNFPA estimate in September</a> warned that if Covid-19 causes a one-year average delay in interventions to end child marriage, some 13 million more child marriages will occur over the next decade.  In Nepal, following the 2015 earthquakes, child marriages reportedly rose when increased economic pressure led to more marriages of under-aged boys and girls.  ‘Destruction of houses and property and interruption of livelihoods from the earthquake resulted in additional financial strain. For some parents, this directly related to decisions made to marry daughters early. For some adolescents, decisions to marry revolved around the fulfilment of basic needs, such as food and shelter,’ according to the report, <a href="https://nepal.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/child_marriage_in_humanitarian_settings_in_south_asia.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Child Marriage in Humanitarian Settings in South Asia</a>. Factors for <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/child-marriage-in-Nepal,3863" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">child marriage</a> are similar in most humanitarian situations, says Apekchya Rana Khatri at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Nepal: “One very important driver is the socio-cultural norms and practices, which value girls less. It starts from there.” In Dolakha and Sindhupalchok, the trend of arranged marriages before age 18 had been decreasing before the earthquake. Love marriages and elopements among older adolescents rose after the earthquake. Each area is a unique setting for child marriage, with the level of education, proximity to urban areas, culture and religion playing instrumental roles.  Puja of Godaita Rural Municipality in Sarlahi says she got married during the lockdown and was 20 at the time. A local NGO disputes her age. But Pooja’s father, Raj Kumar says his daughter is ‘marriageable’. “I married two of my daughters only after they reached the age of 20,” says Raj Kumar. “I married my third daughter Puja in March to a man who is working in a foreign country, because they did not ask for a dowry. I could not say no to such an offer because I already have debt to pay and if I have to take further loans for dowry in order to marry my daughters, I will die of debt.”  His reasons for arranging Puja’s marriage echo those often heard from parents of child brides. “I have five daughters and you know how hard it is to marry daughters in our society,” he says.  Financial issues can lead families to push their daughters to get married early, because it is one person less to feed and clothe. However, experts also argue that there is also the norm of having to get girls married before 19. “But the biggest reason for child marriage we could draw after investigating was the economic cause,” says Anju Sah, a gender and sexual reproductive health rights activist in Sarlahi. Parents were also worried about their daughters eloping because of the growing use of smartphones that girls and boys use to meet, chat and sometimes to arrange to elope.  The lockdown also became an incentive to some families as they could easily complete marriage rituals of girls between 16-18 with smaller budgets without inviting a lot of people. “They are mostly illiterate and they often have a hard time figuring out what to do if any kind of problems come their way,” says Sah. Young mothers are unable to birth normal babies, while <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pregnancy and motherhood</a> also takes a toll on their health. Miscarriages are also common among young mothers. When we talked to Puja in November, she had returned from her in-laws’ to live with her parents while she wrote the Grade 11 exams.  “My husband and I don’t have plans to have children until I finish my studies. There is no pressure from my relatives to have kids right now. I am lucky to have a husband who is understanding and supports my studies,” Puja says.  Creating opportunities for families to lessen the impact of the current economic downturn and creating awareness on gender-based violence would go a long way in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/on-air-to-deter-child-marriage/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reducing child marriage</a> says Rana Khatri. “Reopening schools is a key step in eliminating the risk of child marriage during the pandemic.” <figure><img width="2000" height="1333" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be8af9c7e80680e087875jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Lack of evidence In July, Samita Pradhan from Centre for Agro-ecology and Development (CAED) told <a href="https://anchor.fm/nepalnow/episodes/Women-in-the-age-of-COVID-19-ei4hs8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepal Now podcast</a> about 38 child marriages that had occurred in Sarlahi during the lockdown. In September we began to follow up that report.  Sarlahi staff of the NGO confirmed that the marriages took place in just one ward: Godaita-10. But they corrected the number to 30. One of the names they provided was that of Puja, and soon after we contacted Puja and her father, but they both denied that she was 18 when she got married, insisting she had been 20.  We then reached out to municipal officials in Sarlahi. One of them denied that the reported marriages had taken place, while another confirmed that “a large number” had occurred in the ward, but some time prior to the lockdown.  We consulted with an employee of another NGO working in the area, who told us that no child marriages happened in the ward during lockdown. He also said that Puja had not been married, but only engaged. Conflicting information is a shared experience for organisations doing work around child marriage. While parents are aware of the legal marrying age, marriages continue to take place before girls reach the legal age. Official documents providing evidence of their marriage are often missing, which calls for an urgent need to strengthen registration of births/deaths and other vital information.  Some names have been changed. ALSO READ: https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/more-child-marriages-in-locked-down-nepal/ https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/half-of-nepals-girls-may-drop-out-of-school/ https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171152/636bdb129c7e80680e0802a1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2106" height="1404"/><figcaption>Photo: MONIKA DEUPALA</figcaption></figure>Mohan and Sarita (name changed) studied together in the same school from Grade 6 onwards. They were friends initially, but fell in love and wished to be together, though underage.Sarita’s parents did not approve of this relationship. They restricted her from going to school, and having any interaction with Mohan. Both then decided to quit school and elope, even though they knew marriage before age 20 was illegal.They crossed the border into India, to get married. But the parents of Sarita filed a police complaint against Mohan charging him with human trafficking, and rape of a minor.After a year, Sarita and Mohan returned to the village with a baby. Mohan was detained and taken to court. By this time, Sarita’s own parents had forgiven her and accepted her child. They were also sympathetic towards Mohan.Sarita’s father approached the police to withdraw his case, but it was not legally possible. Today, Mohan is serving out his sentence. His father-in-law regrets having filed a police case against him. He takes lunch for Mohan every day in jail.This is not an isolated case. As per the Nepali law the age of consent is 18 years. Girls, in such instances, have been mostly sent back to their parent’s home and the boy, if under 18, is sent to a correction home.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/">Child marriage in Nepal, eloped at 13, mother by 17</a>, Sewa BhattaraiAs per the <a href="http://www.moljpa.gov.np/en/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Civil-code.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Civil Code Act 2017</a>, the legal age of marriage has been raised to 20 for both boys and girls so that young people can finish school, become independent and mature before they can make informed marriage choices.However, there is a wide gap between the purpose of the law and practice, and social norms. This gap needs to be addressed for the law to be effectively implemented. In 2014, at the Global Girl Summit held in London the Minister of Women, Children and Senior Citizens made a pledge to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/can-nepal-end-child-marriage-by-2030/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">end child marriage by 2030</a>, a commitment reflected in the National Ending Child Marriage Strategy.Marriage is viewed as a traditional and religious institution and is considered a ‘must’ for girls in Nepali society. Parents and members of the family are expected to be responsible for the marriages of their daughters and sisters.The reasoning is ‘protection of girls’, ensuring a ‘secured future’ and a ‘better life’.  Girls are also seen as an economic burden on families, and the pressure of dowry has made this worse. Girls from a very young age are also socialised in such a manner that they see marriage as the only possible future.Many girls feel a sense of security when married, and also perceive marriage as the beginning of their lives. Even among school girls one rarely finds a girl brave enough to declare that she may consider marriage only after school, or may not wish to marry at all.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/can-nepal-end-child-marriage-by-2030/">Can Nepal end child marriage by 2030?</a>, Namrata SharmaThe thinking of parents, family members and even the young girls are shaped by strong patriarchal mind-sets that view girls as objects to be married off to a ‘permanent home’. The result of all this. Our girls are not safe, and parents play a part in keeping it that way.In reality, the expectations that the girls and their families have of marriage are not always met. With weak agency, low self-esteem, and less confidence, girls are unable to negotiate equal status in marriage.The unequal power relationship between men and women always place young married girls as subordinates – they are expected to solve their married life challenges by themselves.Parents mostly shrug their shoulders if married daughters land in trouble from in-laws. Girls are often left alone to fight their fight. Despite being aware of their rights, lack of economic independence, confidence to speak up for themselves and poor knowledge of sexual and reproductive health among the girls result in unwanted pregnancies, gender-based violence and, sometimes even rape.<a style="outline: 0px;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/ending-child-marriage-in-Nepal,3864">Not just a social problem, but an economic one</a>, Elizabeth Hanna Satow<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171152/636bdb159c7e80680e0802a2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="490" height="565">Nepal has the third highest rate of child marriage in the region, after Bangladesh and India. The Nepal Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) 2016 showed that on average women marry four years earlier than men (17.9 years versus 21.7 years). And the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2019 revealed that nearly 14% of women 20-24 years had given birth before age 18.But change is happening. As per the Demographic Health Survey of 2016, the proportion of young women age 15-19 who have never been married has increased from 56% percent to 73%, indicating a positive trend toward later marriage. However, the challenges for educated, economically independent girls and young women are equally tough and slightly different from those of the uneducated.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/child-marriages-up-during-nepal-lockdown/">Child marriages up during lockdown</a>, Namrata SharmaThey have to deal with multitasking at home and work equally well, manage the expectations of joint family members, and if not met, deal with separation and divorce. Expectation of marriage, disapproval of living a self-governing, economically independent life without marriage is also not accepted with respect and appreciation by the society.Local political leaders have been trying to reduce the legal age of marriage down to 16. Their argument is that marriage at the age of 20 years is too late, and to ‘keep’ the girl at home unmarried until then is not advisable.The extreme social control of girl’s sexuality encourages early marriage and unsafe relationships. On one hand, the control of female sexuality is somehow supported by legal restriction of age for sexual relationship between girls and boys.<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19596#.X4wTuNAzbIX">No time for school</a>, Nepali TimesOn the other hand, rapidly changing external context offers both boys and girls more opportunities for interaction through education platforms, or social media. In urban areas, it is increasingly common to see young girls and boys in friendship and sometimes also in relationships. Sooner or later, this trend will gradually expand to the rural areas also, posing serious challenge in implementing the law.We urgently need a debate about the challenges of implementing the law and existing social norms around marriage and sexual activity between young people. We need to shift our thinking, mind-sets and beliefs to provide space and opportunity for girls to grow and make their own life choices.Children should be exposed to untraditional gender norms, so they do not automatically adopt those of their parents’ generation. Girls and boys should learn about sexuality and reproductive rights in a way that empowers them to make safe and consensual choices.Girls should be allowed dreams that go beyond marriage, and it should not be promoted as an ultimate destination for girls. The institutional features of marriage are accountable for 23% of married women experiencing domestic violence. We cannot make such high rates of failure the end destination for our girls.<a style="outline: 0px;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/more-child-marriages-in-locked-down-nepal/">More child marriage in locked down Nepal</a>, Nepali TimesAwareness alone will not be enough to break entrenched feudal and patriarchal mind-sets of both of men and women. Better education alone will not change these harmful practices. Sexuality of adolescent girls and boys needs to be better understood and accepted. Parents should support, not hinder, that journey.Nepal’s policies assure that girls have opportunity for education, employment and exercise their rights. But increasing instances of elopement prove that most parents have failed.  But we need to bridge the gap between the law and the social norms.Karuna Onta, PhD, is the Social Development Advisor at the British Embassy in  Kathmandu.

Too young to marry

<img width="712" height="520" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181144/636a962a9c7e80680e05dc50jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Nepal has made progress in most areas related to children, like health, education, street children welfare, but challenges remain in nutrition, child marriage, and sexual violence, according to a report released on 20 November.The report was released on the occasion of International Children's Day and the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by UNICEF Country Director Elke Wisch, Women's Commission Secretary Dipendra Kafle, Ministry of Women, Children &amp; Social Welfare Secretary Chandra Ghimire, and Child Rights Activist Gauri Pradhan."Nepal has improved access to education, sanitation, and was the first country to explicitly ban corporeal punishment for children. It is time to celebrate these achievements, but also remember there is much to do. This report is a call for action to ensure the rights of all children," said Wisch of UNICEF.Nepal's progress on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nearly-half-of-nepali-children-still-malnourished/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">children's health and  nutrition</a> has stalled since the last census, and the problem of sexual violence has  grown worse. It was also pointed out that some challenges are not mentioned in the report:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/to-the-point/keeping-children-safe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> the threat of pedophiles</a> who target Nepal's children's shelters, and the fact that the Children's Act bans children under 14 from child labour, leaving 14-18 year old children at risk.  Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nearly-half-of-nepali-children-still-malnourished/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nearly half of Nepali children still malnourished</a>, Sonia Awale<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/junk-food-is-making-nepali-children-shorter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Junk food is making Nepali children shorter,</a> Marty Logan "We have made considerable progress in education in general and girls' education in particular, but the situation of nutrition and sexual violence is still not good," admitted Krishna Bhusal of the National Child Rights Commission, adding that the government's recent initiative to manage street children will be expanded out of Kathmandu soon.Child rights activist Gauri Pradhan felt that the biggest achievement is the change in people's mindsets. "The tradition of educating only the son has now all but disappeared, as we see that girls have an equal presence in schools. Also, child labour has become a stigma now, and teachers using physical punishment are stigmatised too," said Pradhan.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/after-quantity-nepals-education-needs-quality/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">After quantity, Nepal’s education needs quality</a>, Prakriti Kandel   <img width="483" height="291" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181144/636a962d9c7e80680e05dc51jpeg.jpg" alt="">Secretary at the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare Chandra Ghimire noted the demographic trend of decreasing percentage of children in Nepal, and pointed out the nation's additional responsibilities.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/editorial-reaping-demographic-dividend,3621" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reaping the demographic dividend, </a>Editorial "At the moment, the population under 35 is the largest demographic group, but due to the decreasing percentage of children, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/need-to-prepare-for-ageing-society,3624" target="_blank" rel="noopener">by 2075 we will become an elderly society</a>," he said. "Nations develop fastest when there is a large youthful population, which means now for Nepal.”Nepal passed a separate Act for children in 2018 which ensures 13 rights of children. Children below 18 form 42% of the population, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">27% of children between 10-18 years are already married</a>.The mortality rate for children below 5 is 39 per 1,000, infant mortality rate is 32 and neonatal mortality rate is 21. More than one-third of children under five are stunted, 10% have wasting, and 27% are underweight.Nearly 40% of children between 5-17 years of age are involved in child labour, and there were 1,420 reported cases of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/four-fold-increase-in-reported-rape-in-10-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">children becoming victims of sexual abuse</a>, up 995 last year. There are 82 children living in jails with a parent, and 821 children living in eight child rehabilitation centres across the country.There were 3,730,602 children joining primary school this year, with 39,820 of them with some form of disability. Half the students from grade 1-12 are girls.Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/children-and-crime/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Children and Crime</a>, Nepali Times<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Child marriage in Nepal: eloped at 13, mother by 17,</a> Sewa Bhattarai

Mixed picture for Nepal’s children

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121156/636a44879c7e80680e04d336jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="800"/>Nepal has made significant progress in raising primary school enrolment, with more than 95% of boys and girls now attending school from Grades 1 through 5. More than half of adolescent girls in rural areas are now in secondary schools; 15 years ago it was less than 30%.Despite this achievement, poverty, family pressure and gender-unfriendly schools mean that the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19596#.XOUa4yAza70">dropout rate</a> for girl students is still high. As a result, adolescent girls from rural areas get caught in a trans-generational cycle of poverty inherited from their mothers, and are more likely to pass it on to their own children.In response, VSO Nepal, in partnership with Aasaman Nepal, the British Council, Global Action and Mercy Corps, is helping girls in districts like Parsa -- where female literacy is low -- through a program called Sisters for Sisters’ Education. Older girls are recruited to mentor younger ones, increase their enrolment and prevent dropouts.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121156/636a448a9c7e80680e04d337jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="800">The older girls are volunteers from the community, who act like Big Sisters to get Little Sisters into school and guide them through adolescence. Big Sisters provide not only academic support but also encouragement and taboo-busting information on sexual and reproductive health to the younger ones.More than one-third (36%) of Nepali women over 15 <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/nepal/literacy-rate-youth-female-percent-of-females-ages-15-24-wb-data.html">have had no education</a>. This rate increases with age, and more than 91% of women ages 60-64 cannot read or write.Sisters for Sisters not only gets Big Sisters to mentor Little Sisters through school and act as positive role models, it works with younger girls, their families and schools to ensure they remain within the formal education system.Although <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/">child marriage is illegal</a>, girls living in rural areas get pulled out of school to be married as early as 13. As girls enter adolescence, this and other pressures increase, resulting in a rising dropout rate: 6% drop out of primary school while 8% percent drop out of secondary school.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121156/636a448d9c7e80680e04d338jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="800">By leaving school, adolescent girls in rural areas fail to acquire a <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/not-just-half-the-sky,1178">lifetime capacity for critical thinking and problem solving</a> that can only be learned via secondary education, which goes beyond basic literacy and numeracy skills.As Little Sisters age, VSO supports them to enrol in higher education, which enhances the girls’ confidence and self-esteem, enabling them to take control of their own sexual and reproductive health and rights, and develop life skills.So far, peer learning support funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) has helped 8,115 girls in Nepal in 50 schools in Dhading, Lamjung, Surkhet and Parsa.Priyanka Budathoki is with VSO Nepal.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121156/636a44909c7e80680e04d339jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="800">_______________________________________________________________________“Never look back” Sunti Devi is 34 and her daughter is 12, the age she was when she got married. Aged 16 with two babies in her arms and a small bag, Sunti was forced to leave her husband’s home. She does not want her daughter, or other daughters in Nepal, to go through what she did and now mentors female students in her community. Sunti’s story:<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121156/636a44939c7e80680e04d33ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="217" height="193">“I was in Grade 7 when my parents fixed my marriage with someone in a faraway village. I became a mother at 13, and my in-laws taunted me for giving birth to a daughter. A year later I gave birth to a baby boy and hoped to be accepted back to my husband’s house. I returned only to find that he had married someone else.I completed Grade 10 and began teaching in a primary school, renting a room to raise my children as a single mother. I started working in Sisters for Sisters’ Education and have never looked back. I am living in the same community where my husband lives with his second wife, but that does not affect me anymore. I am determined not to let my students be forced into marriage at an early age. As an Auntie Champion I train the girls in life skills, mentor them and increase their confidence.”_______________________________________________________________________“I am proud of my sisters”Apsana Khatun, 19, from Province 2, is a Big Sister community volunteer who mentors four girls (Little Sisters) in a community school. When her relatives wanted her married Apsana’s mother resisted. Her story:<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121156/636a44949c7e80680e04d33bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="816" height="544">“I am a Muslim. The girls in my community cannot go out on their own, and have to wear veils. My relatives wanted me married off, but my mother allowed me to go to school. Many other girls are not so lucky. After completing Grade 10, I became a Big Sister community volunteer in Sisters for Sisters’ Education in my village.I am responsible for four Little Sisters, whom I mentor with academic guidance and emotional support. At first their parents were not happy with me. But I persisted, and got two of them who had dropped out back in school. Now, the parents treat me like family. I feel so proud when the girls in my school say they want to be teachers, doctors and nurses. My mother never went to school; I want every mother in Nepal to be educated."

Sisterhood of students