Travels in the third gender

Posted on 9 May 2012 by NepaliKuire

Fascinating:

Documents and Disasters: Can Proper ID Save the Lives of Transgender People in Emergencies?

Last summer when Bhumika Shrestha travelled to New York City to represent Nepal at the United Nations, she encountered some special questions during her layover in Doha. Shrestha, who is transgender — or, in Nepal, third-gender — presents as an elegant young woman. Her passport and citizenship ID card, however, both list her as a man named Kailash.

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In Qatar, airline officials pulled her aside and questioned her about her passport and her appearance but eventually let her go.

The experience was unpleasant for Shrestha but not unsafe. In the worst-case scenario, the documentation discrepancy would have sent her home on the next flight to Kathmandu.

“They asked me questions, and I was scared to fail on my first trip to the U.S.,” she recalls, “but then they believed my story that I was transgender and let me get on the plane.”

Like so many transgender people, Shrestha faces daily administrative struggles. As Paisley Currah, professor of Political Science at City University of New York, explains in a paper titled “Securitizing Gender: Identity, Biometrics, and Transgender Bodies at the Airport,” “When an individual’s cultural legibility is not affirmed by their identity papers, even everyday quotidian transactions become moments of vulnerability.”

However, while common transactions might be difficult, in situations where security is heightened — such as at the airport — discrepancies between gender presentation and documentation can make transgender people the targets of increased scrutiny, neglect, or abuse.

Such vulnerability can be aggravated by emergency conditions. Similar to situations at the airport, during emergencies that require intensified security, people who don’t conform to gendered expectations become anomalies, and anomalies get special — and sometimes unjust — attention. Several countries have seen this happen. International relief agencies admit there is a dearth of attention paid to this issue.

Nepal, with its protected legal status for third-gender citizens, and currently in a disaster preparedness phase awaiting an earthquake, provides a compelling case study for how gender-appropriate ID can protect citizens in emergency situations. The stories from other disasters support government issuance of third-gender ID documents, a move the central government in Nepal has yet to make.

The Importance of Being Eunuch

In the aftermath of the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami — which killed nearly a quarter of a million people in 14 countries — aid and relief organizations in India paid special attention to how their services were administered across genders. Recognizing that women were particularly vulnerable in post-disaster situations, efforts were made to develop gender-sensitive programs.

However, in spite of these special considerations for gender, a class of citizens who do not conform to a binary gender system — male or female — was often excluded from the relief efforts.

The Aravanis of India fall into a third-gender category. The term “Aravani” is used in the state of Tamil Nadu, where the tsunami struck most violently, to refer to a group more widely known as “hijras,” biological males who have feminine gender identity, frequently wear women’s clothing, and perform other feminine gender roles.

When the tsunami hit in late 2004, the resultant disaster aggravated the already deeply entrenched marginalization of third-gender people. In a 2008 report reflecting on the relief efforts, “Indian Ocean Tsunami Through the Gender Lens,” Oxfam research suggests that third-gender “vulnerabilities worsened in the aftermath of the Tsunami.”

The report explains that the “systemic exclusion faced by the Aravanis before the Tsunami was reinforced in post-disaster management practices” and cites homelessness, career-ending injuries (many Aravanis are dancers), and the lack of ration cards (denied because of their gender identity) as impediments to their ability to access basic services and live with dignity.

“Social hierarchies reproduce themselves in contexts of disaster,” explains Arvind Narrain, a leading human rights lawyer in India. “Those who are the margins of society find themselves ostracized and discriminated against when it comes to receiving aid.” Transgenders fall within this category.

“The exclusion of Aravanis in government policy and gender discourse has largely rendered them invisible,” confirms the Oxfam report. “This invisibility was compounded in the aftermath of the Tsunami.”

Just months after the tsunami, India’s third-gender citizens could start registering for passports as a third gender, eunuch, denoted by an “E.” In 2009, further progress was made, adding an “E” to voter registration documents. And in 2011, the Indian government’s heralded citizen ID number system allows “transgender” as a gender option.

But, explains Narrain, ID is not enough. “What one is combating is social prejudice,” he says. “In the immediate crisis situation, what one needs is sensitivity of the relief workers.” However in moving toward the stage of rehabilitation, Narrain believes “documents become key as one cannot avail of aid schemes without it.”

Denied Entry, Fitting the Program

In the ongoing 2011 flood relief efforts in Pakistan, reports have emerged that transgenders are getting left out of the aid efforts and denied from IDP camps because of general prejudice, their non-conforming appearance, and their lack of proper identification documents.

Bindiya Rana, of Gender Interactive Alliance, an NGO working with transgenders in Pakistan, explains that while the Pakistani supreme court directed the government to issue third-gender ID cards in 2009, none have been given out yet. As a result, many transgender citizens lack any identification documents at all. According to Rana, this occurs because “a lot of transgenders get separated from their parents from a very young age and are unable to get their parents’ ID cards and other supporting documents which are required to get an ID.”

Similar instances of aid denial occurred in post-earthquake Haiti.

While same-sex sexual activity between consenting adults has been legal in Haiti since 1986, the LGBT community has been marginalized by years of oppression from government, religious, and community leaders. Daily movement can be dangerous, especially for those who present in a way that is perceived to be gay or transgender.

To cope with harassment and discrimination, LGBT people, writes IGLHRC (the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission) in a 2011 report, “rely on the vigilance of family, friends, and sympathetic neighbors [and] … derive a sense of security from the ability to close a window or lock a door as both physical and a psychological barriers against intrusion and violence.”

But the earthquake destroyed the infrastructure — from walls that kept lives private to alleyways that made travel to clinics and gathering spaces safe — that made security for the lives of LGBT people possible. In the wake of the damage, people who had relied on specialized and often secret services, such as HIV/AIDS medical clinics, were forced to turn to the common consumption of relief aid.

In light of the vulnerability of women in many emergency situations, relief distribution programs often operate by focusing on getting supplies into the hands of women. Studies have demonstrated that women are more likely to distribute relief materials to vulnerable people within families, such as children and the elderly, than are men.

In Haiti IGLHRC research found this problematic for transgender people and people who do not live in a home with a female who qualifies as head of household. Writes IGLHRC: “[T]his policy has had the unintended side-effect of excluding many gay men and transgender people in need.” Their research profiled a gay man who was so desperate to receive food rations that he attempted to stand in a women-only line at an IDP camp dressed as a woman. He was discovered by others in the line and beaten until he ran away.

The More You Know

As Nepal braces for an earthquake, the tension is palpable. Embassies, the government, and INGOs are offering preparedness seminars and consultations. Fliers advertising ready-made safety kits and “go-bags” appear across Kathmandu. A quake hit eastern Nepal in late September and caused some damage and a few deaths, even some in the capital. “Kathmandu is the next Port-au-Prince, but worse,” goes a common refrain in preparedness seminar conversations.

Since 2007, the government of Nepal has been legally mandated by the supreme court to issue third-gender citizenship ID cards; however, only three citizens have successfully registered, despite hundreds attempting. In a gesture of progress, the 2011 national census — despite faulty methodology andaccusations of fraud — allowed people to register as third-gender. Similarly, ongoing voter registration in the country has been third-gender-inclusive.

Sunil Babu Pant, MP, director of Blue Diamond Society, Nepal’s LGBTI rights organization, understands the gravity of the situation for third-genders as the country prepares for an earthquake. “All of the small ways in which they face discrimination now will intensify after a disaster when people are desperate for help,” explains Pant, who sits on a parliamentary committee charged with implementing disaster preparedness projects.

Pitamber Aryal, Director of the Disaster Management Department at Red Cross Nepal, which includes disaster response, preparedness and risk reduction, and recovery, frames the problem as one of information: “In crisis response, our default unit is the household, the family,” he explains. “During an emergency, we can’t go check in each household to make sure the aid is being distributed fairly and the family members treated equally.”

In Nepal and other countries where people often live with their families into adulthood, transgender people of all ages may experience stigma and discrimination within the household, and that could manifest itself harshly in resource distribution. In such situations, transgender identification documents might not be immediately helpful. However having government documentation of this class of citizens would encourage relief efforts to be more sensitive to their needs.

“Proper ID cards would give a clear mandate to relief services,” explains Aryal, “to pay attention to transgender people as a vulnerable class of people, and thus make the programs appropriate for their needs.”

Pant agrees: “Citizenship ID cards allow Nepali citizens access to the most basic services. After an earthquake, those basic services will be food, water, and shelter — the things that will make the difference between life and death.”

But ID doesn’t complete the work.

“We need to have gender sensitization activities targeting to different levels … so that people don’t experience stigma, whether it is from the decision maker, service provider, or community,” suggests Aryal. The task, he believes, is to address not only discrimination but stigma. “Unless and until we address stigma, we won’t have sustainable change.”

Pant supports the documentation of gender identity as a move in this direction. In his view, appropriate documents start to put third-gender people on a level plane with the rest of the society. “That’s a step toward eroding stigma,” he says, “then we can have conversations armed with those documents that communicate clearly what our government believes — third-genders are equal.”

The Basic Truth

Earlier this year, the UN acknowledged the importance of proper identification documents for transgender people. Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, explained, “Without official recognition of their preferred gender, transgender and intersex individuals face a wide range of practical, everyday challenges — for example, when applying for a job, opening a bank account or travelling.”

In emergency situations, the administrative hassles that can prevent adequate and appropriate care can be harsh. However, properly gendered documentation can make accessing aid a reality for more people.

“Governments have an obligation to ensure their citizens the maximum protections in emergency situations,” says Dr. Anna Neistat, associate director of the emergencies program at Human Rights Watch. Neistat, who has researched emergencies in more than a dozen countries — including Nepal, Haiti, and Pakistan — puts the simplicity of gender-appropriate identification documents in context: “In conflict and disaster situations, access to humanitarian aid is a human right for all people regardless of identity or presentation, and governments must ensure that aid is accessible.”

Ensuring the safety of transgender people is not as simple as allowing them to document their identity. And carrying around documents that mark people as such — or even counting LGBT people — can bring up myriad safety concerns. What is more, the definitions of gender can differ from document to document, and region to region. Currah reminds us that “for transgender people, the immense number of state actors defining sex [and gender] ensnares them in a Kafkaesque web of official identity contradiction and chaos.”

However, the potential for effective exclusion of transgender people from basic relief in emergency situations sheds light on the urgency with which identity documentation must be carefully considered for all people, and in all programs.

Follow Kyle Knight on Twitter: www.twitter.com/knightktm

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Update on third gender

Posted on 9 May 2012 by NepaliKuire

Another interesting update from Fulbright Scholar Kyle Knight.

Nepal’s Third Gender and the Recognition of Gender Identity

On Dec. 27, 2007, the Supreme Court of Nepal issued a decision that has been called “arguably the single most comprehensive judgment affirming protections for gender identity anywhere in the world.” The decision in Pant v. Nepal was overwhelmingly in favor of the petitioners, a group of local lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) rights NGOs led by Sunil Babu Pant, president of the Blue Diamond Society, a sexual health and human rights organization founded in 2001. In addition to mandating that the government scrap all laws that discriminated based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity and establish a committee to study same-sex marriage policy, the court took the unique approach of establishing a third-gender category.

In legal terms, the third gender in Nepal — denoted on official documents as “other” — is an identity-based category for people who do not identify as either male or female. This may include people who present or perform as a gender that is different from the one that was assigned to them at birth. It can also include people who do not feel that the male or female gender roles dictated by their culture match their true social, sexual, or gender identity.

There are other countries that have instituted third-gender categories, but none nearly as comprehensive as Nepal. In 2005 India’s third-gender citizens were allowed to register for passports as “eunuchs,” denoted by an “E.” In 2009 an “E” designation was added to voter registration documents. Shortly after Nepal announced that it would include a third-gender category on its census, India followed suit. In 2011 the Unique Identification Authority of India, administering a new government citizen ID number system, allowed “transgender” as a third-gender option.

Australia and New Zealand both have “X” as an option, in addition to “M” and “F,” on passport applications. Bangladesh allows citizens to register to vote as “eunuchs.” The Supreme Court of Pakistan also ordered the government to issue third-gender ID cards, but three years later not a single one has been issued. Without a comprehensive model to follow, Nepal’s LGBTI activists have worked tirelessly with the government bureaucracy to implement the category.

In the broadest implementation of the category yet, the 2011 Nepal census was the world’s first to allow people to register as a gender other than male or female. Enumeration was fraught with difficulties; the release of preliminary data with no mention of a third gender may mean that those who identified as such will be left out of meaningful data sets altogether.

Part of the 2007 decision in Pant ordered the government to issue citizenship ID cards that allowed “third-gender” or “other” to be listed. Since then, only two citizens, through relentless personal advocacy, have successfully received documents that reflect their true gender identity. Without access to these properly gendered documents, citizens cannot open bank accounts or inherit property, among other rights. Individuals have faced harassment after officials noticed discrepancies between gender appearance and official documents.

Several international law arguments can support Nepali activists in their fight for legal recognition. Official recognition of one’s gender identity is required to guarantee the right to recognition as a person before the law. Recognition as a person before the law is both a right in itself, guaranteed in numerous human rights instruments, and a critical means for the exercise of other rights. More generally, recognition as a person is essential to reflect the dignity and worth of every person and reaffirm our common humanity, as reaffirmed by the Yogyakarta Principles.

Reading the right to recognition as a person together with other rights strengthens the conclusion that states must give official recognition to one’s self-defined gender identity.

The state’s refusal to record a person’s self-identified gender identity on official documents touches, or very nearly touches, the core of one’s sense of self. Such an intrusion on the core self arguably violates the right to privacy. It also treats differently those whose gender identity does not necessarily correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth, and it does so without a reasonable basis, in violation of the right to freedom from discrimination.

Several cases from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) essentially apply this analysis. For instance, the ECHR found that Germany had failed to respect “the applicant’s freedom to define herself as a female person, one of the most basic essentials of self-determination.”

The refusal of states to reflect chosen gender identity on documents may also violate the right to freedom of opinion and expression. The Yogyakarta Principles call on states to take all necessary measures “to ensure the full enjoyment of the right to express identity or personhood, including through speech, deportment, dress, bodily characteristics, choice of name or any other means.” The jurisprudential notes to the Yogyakarta Principles suggest that the drafters had in mind violence prompted by, and state criminalization of, particular choices of dress. But the designation of gender is an expression of identity or personhood of the same order as a choice of name. A state’s refusal to accept a person’s self-identified gender identity for identification documents effectively compels that person to express another identity.

Forcing individuals to identify publicly as a gender other than the one with which they want to identify may also violate freedom of conscience. The innate nature of gender identity makes it more akin to a matter of conscience than one of opinion or expression.

As with religion and belief, the right to freedom of thought and conscience is absolute; it cannot be limited in any way. However, outward manifestations of religion or belief can be restricted if the limitations are “prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.” For that reason, the distinction between holding and manifesting a thought, matter of conscience, religion, or belief is important.

A requirement to indicate on identity documents a gender different from one’s actual gender identity is arguably a form of coercion to hold or express a particular thought, matter of conscience, or belief. But even if such a requirement is read as controlling only the manifestation of thought, conscience, or belief, the requirement would not appear to pass the test of necessity.

The fact that international standards permit travel on passports that do not indicate sex casts considerable doubt on any public safety or public order justification; similarly, there are no compelling public health or moral interests in forcing people to bear documents listing a gender that does not correspond to their gender identity.

In addition, official acknowledgement of a third-gender status may serve as a check on official and private acts of harassment and violence. The Committee Against Torture has noted that “actual or perceived non-conformity with socially determined gender roles” increases the risk that an individual will be subjected to harassment and violence. Reports of violence at the hands of police in Nepal and elsewhere in the world against those who do not conform to such gender roles bear out the committee’s observation.

Finally, official acknowledgement has positive implications for other human rights. Although the lack of accepted identity documents should not preclude the enjoyment of other rights, the reality is that identification is often required to attend school, hold a job, open a bank account, receive medical care, vote, and conduct many other aspects of daily life. The lack of legal recognition can therefore lead to infringements on the rights to an education, to work, to an adequate standard of living, to the highest attainable standard of health, and to political participation, among other rights. It can increase the risk of exploitation and can impede the right to freedom of association.

Implementing a third-gender category is not the only way to legally recognize and protect gender identity. However, Nepali activists’ experience advocating for and implementing the category demonstrate it to be a meaningful, rights-based recognition and protection measure.

This article was originally published on the Jurist website.

This piece was co-authored with, Michael Bochenek, Director of Law & Policy at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International. This article reflects the views of the authors and not necessarily those of Amnesty International.

Follow Kyle Knight on Twitter: www.twitter.com/knightktm

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Shock! Mountain people excluded

Posted on 9 May 2012 by NepaliKuire

‘Indigenous mountain people’? Really? Is this a way of saying that Dalits or Chetris are not poor in the mountains?

Nepal: Mountain dwellers “neglected”

KATHMANDU, 8 May 2012 (IRIN) – The needs of millions of indigenous mountain people across Nepal are overlooked, imperilling their food security and hindering their economic progress, activists and experts say.

“People in the mountains of Nepal are worse off in terms of total poverty – food and non-food poverty,” said Jean-Yves Gerlitz, co-author of a recent study on mountain poverty, and statistical analyst at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), an NGO based in the capital, Kathmandu.

In assessing the government-administered Nepal Living Standards Survey (NLSS) of 2003/2004, the authors noted that 40 percent of the 12 million people living in the mountainous and hilly regions of Nepal were below the poverty line (US$91per year), compared to a national average of 31 percent of 29 million people.

Nepal is divided into three geographic zones – the northern mountains, central hills, and southern plains – each extending lengthwise through the country. The population is disproportionately distributed across these zones, with half residing in the plains, 43 percent in the hills, and only 7 percent in the mountains.

While data from the 2011 NLSS reveal a declining national poverty rate – now at 25 percent – indigenous mountain groups still fare worse.

ICIMOD says mountain and hill communities, compared to those living in the plains, have less access to “improved” sources of safe drinking water and electricity, and live hours away from road networks, markets and financial services.

Difficult terrain “aggravates the problems of access to essential services such as health, education, and livelihood support,” the report pointed out.

Households are more likely to be headed by a family member without formal education, and with more youth leaving to seek work in urban centres or abroad, the women, children and elderly are often left behind to bear the work burden, Gerlitz said.

General planning, special needs

National plans and development strategies generally apply to the country as a whole, and fail to address the particular needs of mountain dwellers, said Kiran Hunzai, ICIMOD poverty analyst and co-author of the agency’s recent report.

This has also been the case in the development of national climate change policies and programmes, said Ang Kaji Sherpa, general secretary of the Kathmandu-based NGO, Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities.

Indigenous groups were not consulted in the writing of the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) to Climate Change, despite their increasing vulnerability to erratic weather patterns, Sherpa told an international conference that convened mountain countries in Kathmandu in April 2012.

In recent years the Nepalese government has also cordoned off large areas of land for conservation and reforestation, displacing large numbers of the local population, who have had little say in the matter, Sherpa said.

“They have been forcibly migrated, and their livelihoods have been affected. All of this should be taken into account when Nepal is implementing its adaptation or mitigation policies.”

Batu Uprety, technical joint-secretary at the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology, maintained that representatives of the indigenous communities had participated in an open consultation on the NAPA, and that the root of mountain poverty is not neglect, but rather the difficult terrain, he told IRIN.

ICIMOD’s Hunzai noted that not all mountain communities are isolated.

A recent UN report has called for greater focus on mountain development.

“Covering about one-quarter of the world’s land surface, mountains provide a direct life-support base for about 12 percent of the world population, as well as essential goods and services to more than half of humankind,” noted the report’s authors.

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First ‘gender inclusive’ bathroom

Posted on 9 May 2012 by NepaliKuire

Nepal continues to lead the world in third gender developments…

Nepal Flushes Out Genderism

“I feel safe now,” says Om, a 24-year-old who identifies as third-gender, as he walks across Bageshwori Park in Nepalgunj to buy coconut milk. “I used to come to this park at night to meet friends, but I was beaten in the bathroom one time because of how I look, so I never went back.”

Om is back in the park for a special occasion: the opening of Nepal’s first gender-inclusive public toilet. Smoke from a pile of burning corn cobs and garbage 40 feet away wafts through the crowd, making some cough. Then, as the afternoon sun blazes, a crimson curtain gets jerked aside to reveal a plaque, and the country’s first gender-inclusive public toilet is officially opened.

In Nepal, a legally protected third-gender category, labeled “third-gender” or “other,” has existed since the Supreme Court issued its decision in favour of a group of LGBTI NGOs in 2007. The court ordered the government to scrap all discriminatory laws, recognise those who identified as third-gender, and form a study committee to recommend same-sex marriage policies for Nepal. The lead petitioner on that case was Sunil Babu Pant, who, six months later, was elected to parliament.

Legally speaking, the third gender in Nepal is an identity-based category for people who do not identify themselves as either male or female. This may include people who perform or present as a gender that is different from the one that was assigned to them at birth based on genitalia or other criteria. It can also include people who do not feel that the male or female gender roles that their culture dictates to them match their true social, sexual, or gender identity.

The 2007 court decision is regarded by human rights activists around the world as one of the most progressive legal moves a government has ever made with regard to gender identity. Most notably, the court declared that the only requirement for being identified as a third-gender is self-identification.

“This is to show respect for the gender-variant people of Nepal,” said Pant of the new facility in Nepalgunj. “And to demonstrate physically what our court said five years ago, that citizens who identify as not male and not female are equal citizens.”

Pant used his Parliamentarian’s Development Fund to build this facility in the Nepalgunj park and one elsewhere in the city.

Opening a third bathroom may seem like a simple move, but the battle over gender-segregated toilets has been fought for years by transgender rights activists and organisations around the world. In Thailand schools began to denote separate bathrooms forkathoeys (effeminate male-bodied people) as early as 2003. Rights groups and kathoeys applauded the development, as it ensured them more safety.

Pant believes such facilities represent fundamental rights and inclusion. He says, “Third-genders are not exempted from taxes, so why would the government leave them out of basic public facilities like toilets, health-care centers, education centers, and old-age homes?” Pant believes that this shift in policy can go in two directions: “Toilets should either be gender-neutral or, if gender-segregated toilets are necessary, they must be built for all, not just for men and women.”

But the idea of a third facility isn’t universally accepted. A report by the U.S.-based Transgender Law Center, “Peeing in Peace,” recommends that activists not advocate for separate “transgender bathrooms.” Citing safety (people “out” themselves by entering), likely resistance (extra construction means extra costs), and limited scope (transgender people have other identities, as well), the report suggests instead that gender-segregated bathrooms operate on the basis of gender identity, or that all public bathrooms be gender-neutral.

However, Pant argues, “gender segregation is an important part of Nepali culture.” He explains that his advocacy group, Blue Diamond Society, surveyed its members (the organisation has over 400,000 members) and asked what would make gender-variant members feel comfortable. “This facility is an option among three,” Pant explains. “People who do not identify as male or female need this option to be safe, and we want it for them, because they should have the right to celebrate and enjoy this identity. Why would we make them fit into a facility they didn’t identify with?”

Some development scholars see such exclusion as symptomatic of a broader problem: that gender-variant people are left out of development programs in general.

“The lack of provisions for people of all genders and gender expressions violates basic rights and compounds the lack of respect that gender-variant people experience in many countries from society and the state,” explains Andrea Cornwall, professor of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.

Arguing that HIV/AIDS programs are virtually the only sub-area of development in which gender-variant people are addressed, Cornwall sees the problem as a broad one: “Development programs have largely failed to address gender variance. We see little development attention being given to people whose gender expression is different from that which is expected of men and women in their society.”

And if the programmes are further excluding already-marginalised gender-variant people, their options for accessing safe, clean facilities such as public toilets are limited.

“Safe access to bathroom facilities for all people is essential to health,” explains Dr. Sonal Singh, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. Singh, who is the author of a forthcoming article on health-care access for LGBTI people in Nepal, believes this new facility is “an infrastructural embodiment of human rights.”

“Building a public toilet like this in rural Nepal demonstrates that allowing transgender and gender-variant people access to basic health facilities is an important part of ensuring access to health in development projects,” he explains.

A month young, the facility appears to be popular. Sudip Bhatta, regional coordinator for Blue Diamond Society in Nepalgunj, reports that “our transgender members are very happy with the toilet. They say it has relieved a lot of stress in their lives and makes them feel safe.”

Blue Diamond Society continues to advocate for the rights of transgender and gender-variant people on all fronts, perhaps most notably in the ongoing struggle to have the government issue citizenship ID cards allowing for “other” as a gender option. “We are confident that whether on documents or in infrastructure, the government is moving in the right direction,” says Pant.

This article was originally published in The Kathmandu Post.

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Nepal receives 89.64 billion in foreign aid ($1.2b)

Posted on 9 May 2012 by NepaliKuire

Phew!

Nepal receives Rs 89.64 b foreign aid

Nepal has received foreign assistance of approximately Rs 89.64 billion (about USD 1.8 billion) in the Fiscal Year 2010-11.

As per the Development Cooperation Report for Fiscal Year 2010-11 prepared by the Ministry of Finance, of the total foreign aid received during that period about 58 per cent was received from the multilateral donor agencies, 36 per cent from the OECD-DAC bilateral donors and six per cent from the bilateral South-South Cooperation partners.

The Report names the World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the United Nations Programme, European Union (EU) and the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria Control as Nepal’s five major donors.

The WB provided USD 256.1 million, the ADB USD 184.4 million, the UN Programme USD 112.5 million, the EU USD 42.4 million and the Global Fund USD 19 million to Nepal in that fiscal year.

Similarly, among the five major countries providing bilateral assistance are the United Kingdom (USD 92.1 million), Japan (USD 58.7 million), India (USD 50.7 million), the United States (USD 48.5 million) and Norway (USD 32.8 million).

The Report states that per head foreign assistance received by Nepal is approximately USD 40.6 and this figure is very less compared to the per head foreign assistance figure of countries with comparable Human Development Index as Nepal. The ‘per person’ foreign assistance in Senegal is USD 84 and 55 dollars in Uganda and 67 dollars in Tanzania.

Four sectors have received foreign assistance of more than one USD billion in the Fiscal Year 2010-11, according to the Report. These sectors are education (USD 202.8 million), local development (USD 135.1 million), health (USD129.6 million) and road transport (USD111 million) in that fiscal year.

From the Himalayan Times

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Update on Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Posted on 9 May 2012 by NepaliKuire

Excellent update on the progress (of lack of) in the TRC by the Asian Center for Human Rights

Justice eludes Nepal

On 22 April 2012, groups representing victims of human rights violations both the security forces and the Maoists released a press statement condemning the dangers of general amnesty proposed in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Nepal.

The draft legislation to establish the TRC framework has been under discussion in Nepal’s parliament since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in November 2006. In 2007, the government drafted a flawed bill to establish the TRC. Following criticism, the bill went through several corrections and modifications. A consensus was emerging in the Parliamentary Committee to give some powers to grant amnesty with the consent of victims but not to give powers to grant amnesty for heinous crimes.

However, the political leadership of the three major parties i.e. the UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress and UML intervened and moved to withdraw the bill pending before parliament. In March 2012, these political parties agreed to table the draft TRC Bill by removing Section 25(2) of the proposed bill which lists “six unpardonable crimes” i.e. murder in captivity, murder of an unarmed person, rape, torture, forced disappearance and abduction. This decision to provide impunity violates the basic tenets of international human rights and humanitarian laws. From a security and development perspective this is a sheer madness: it sends a very wrong message to Nepal’s law enforcement personnel who have no respect for the law, burgeoning criminal groups and the armed opposition groups.

While the three major political parties have still not reached consensus as to whether to merge the TRC and the Commission of Inquiry into Disappearances, they have agreed that appointment of members to the TRC will be made based on “political consensus”. This implies an appointment process much in the manner of Nepal’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) i.e. seats divided amongst political parties with little or no concerns for qualification, competence or independence.

The position of the international community, not least those who will fund this expensive TRC process, should be very clear. But as yet it isn’t. While some in the international community oppose the TRC process as currently shaped, a few others are arguing that something is better than nothing: the TRC process must be given time and capacity building, and financial support will provide leverage in the medium term for a more satisfactory outcome.

The naivety of this approach can be best demonstrated by the ‘lessons learned’ from the experience of the NHRC. The international community, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), took a similar line to the approach being considered for the TRC: the NHRC could be influenced over time with the help of extensive capacity building.

The NHRC experience demonstrates that providing technical and financial support in the context of a political consensus to provide impunity is futile. Twelve years of international support to the NHRC has meant little. The Commissioners are engaged in multiple court cases including allegations of corruption. The donors have had repeated internal discussions with the NHRC where the issues were made very plain. The NHRC’s problems of management, capacity, corruption and politicisation became a matter of public record. Commissioners have themselves publicly condemned the organisation, describing it as ‘deteriorating by the day’, ‘plagued by internal problems’, ‘self serving’, and ‘corrupt’.

The donors and the UN have responded to public failure, repeated allegations of corruption and incompetence of the NHRC with fund renewal and indeed increased funding. The donors despite the overwhelming evidence repeatedly insisted on finding answers the NHRC’s problems in capacity building rather than recognising the structural flaws that made failure inevitable. The OHCHR in its twilight years in Nepal sought to extend its mandate in the country by extending unstinted support to the NHRC despite its known failures.

Stunningly, the International Coordination Committee of the National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) charged with accreditation of the NHRIs worldwide awarded the NHRC of Nepal “A – Status” in 2011 to certify that the NHRC of Nepal is a functional and independent institution. Prior to granting of A-Status, Nepalese media reported the views of the Acting Head of the OHCHR that to punish the NHRC of Nepal on matters beyond its control i.e. the weaknesses in the law governing its mandate was “unfair”. This position of the OHCHR is flawed as the sole consideration should be whether or not the NHRC complies with the Paris Principles on the NHRIs.

The results are all there to see. In January 2012, the Government of Nepal passed the NHRC Amendment Act. The government has been given the right of controlling financial activities of the NHRC and a statutory limitation has been put to prevent the the NHRC from intervening in the cases of human rights violations if they are not reported within six months of occurrence. The NHRC has not only been reduced to an administrative arm of the executive from an independent constitutional body but has been effectively barred from inquiring into past abuses. By the OHCHR’s yardsticks, it would still be unfair to blame the NHRC of Nepal!

If the donor’s strategy did not work for the NHRC, it is unlikely that it would work in the case of the TRC. Yet, many more millions of tax payers’ dollars will be spent to support the TRC. The time has come for the international community, most notably, the UN to stand up against impunity in Nepal. An unsatisfactory TRC will not only betray the victims but it will damage all other human rights, security and development efforts. No funding should be given unless the government of Nepal demonstrates political will by actually implementing clearly defined commitments and reversing policy decisions that buttress impunity. A TRC that does not give amnesty to “six unpardonable crimes” must be the basis for starting any support, technical or financial, to the TRC by the international community.

By – Suhas Chakma, Director, Asian Centre for Human Rights

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Urmila Chaudary at Oslo Freedom Forum

Posted on 9 May 2012 by NepaliKuire

 

URMILA CHAUDHARY is a Nepalese women’s rights activist and a former domestic slave under the kamalari system, a form of debt bondage. At the age of six, she was forced to leave her family and was sold into domestic servitude. For 11 years she was exploited, abused, and forced to work without any compensation in the house of a wealthy, well-known family in Kathmandu. She was freed in 2007, at 17 years old, with the help of international and local NGOs. Upon gaining her freedom, Chaudhary decided to fight for the many girls still enslaved under the kamalari system. In December 2007, she was elected the first president of the Common Forum for Kamalari Freedom (CFKF), an organization founded by girls and women to fight for their rights.

“I started to learn the English language only at 17, when I was freed from my slave life. We are known as Kamalari, which means hardworking girl. When girls are 6 or 7 years old, they are sent out of the house, and they are sent to work as a slave. This is deeply rooted in the community.

Every year, at our great festival, agents come. They make false promises to the girl and her parents, they say they will send the girls to school. Of course, they do not fufill their promise. They are sent to do domestic work, including agricultural labor. For this, the parents get a minimum payment.

Girls are subject to physical and mental abuse, and in some cases, sexual abuse too.

Kamaiya is the name for the system of bonded labor in Nepal, the victims are known as Kamaiyas. Laborers farm for a landowner, who may take entire families, especially daughters, into bond. Children of slaves will be automatically owned by the slave master.

When I became Kamalari, I was just 6 years old. I was sent to Kathmandu, which is a six hour drive from my home. If I didn’t make my house owner happy, I was beaten, and subject to verbal abuse. I took care of the children, I worked in the house: there was no limit to what I needed to do to make my house owner happy. I never had direct eye contact with my owners.

In this painful condition, I spent almost 12 years.

I worked in a different house. Finally, with the help of my own brother, I found my home again. He was assisted by several organizations to bring me back, and finally I returned to my home.

When I reached home, I spoke out. At first there were only 18 of us. But we became a precedent, and organized a rally in our village. Our forum became 2000 people strong. We hold performances for education against the Kamalari systems.

In 2009, we declared our district, Dang, as a free district for freed Kamalari. With this, we support education, and the creation of local business. Now, we can see happiness on the faces of freed young women, and live with the knowledge that they face a better future.”

About

Chaudhary was born in Manpur in the Terai Plains of southwestern Nepal. Her parents were Kamaiya, bonded laborers, as are many landless farmers from the ethnic group of the Tharu. Chaudhary and all of the women in her family—her mother, grandmother, aunt, and sisters—worked as slaves under the kamalari system.

After she was freed in 2007 with the help of international and local NGOs, Chaudhary was finally able to start school. She is currently attending high school in Lamahi/Dang in Nepal. As soon as she gained freedom, Chaudhary decided she had to fight for the many girls who still live in slavery underkamalari.

In December 2007, she was elected the first president of the Common Forum for Kamalari Freedom (CFKF), an organization founded by women and girls to fight for their rights. Chaudhary and a delegation of girls traveled several times to see the president, the prime minister, and other important government leaders in Nepal to seek financial support for the education of former slaves. Chaudhary organizes performances in villages to raise awareness among girls and their parents. She is a role model for the many freed girls, ranging from the ages of eight to twenty, who were unable to return to their families after being rescued from servitude.

 

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Al Jazeera video on Dalits

Posted on 27 April 2012 by NepaliKuire

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CNN heroes reborn, this time: prisons

Posted on 16 March 2012 by NepaliKuire

CNN heroes is building up again.

Remember last year when Demi Moore – of course never a celebrity to promote the sexualisation of women herself – parachuted into a 5* hotel in Nepal for two days to tell the American people about the hellish conditions those sexualised by society live in.

Pulling children out of Nepal’s prisons

Pushpa Basnet doesn’t need an alarm clock. Every morning, the sounds of 40 children wake her up in the two-story home she shares with them.

As she helps the children dress for school, Basnet might appear to be a housemother of sorts. But the real story is more complicated.

All of these children once lived in Nepal’s prisons. This 28-year-old woman has saved every one of them from a life behind bars.

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world — according to UNICEF, 55% of the population lives below the international poverty line — so it lacks the social safety net that exists in most Western nations. Space is extremely limited in the few children’s homes affiliated with the government.

So when no local guardian is available, an arrested parent often must choose between bringing their children to jail with them or letting them live on the streets. Nepal’s Department of Prison Management estimates 80 children live in the nation’s prisons.

“It’s not fair for (these) children to live in the prison because they haven’t done anything wrong,” said Basnet, who started a nongovernmental organization to help. “My mission is to make sure no child grows up behind prison walls.”

Basnet is one of many in Nepal who have started groups to get children out of prison. Since 2005, she has assisted more than 100 children of incarcerated parents. She runs a day care program for children under 6 and a residential home where mostly older children receive education, food, medical care and a chance to live a more normal life.

Since 2005, Pushpa Basnet has assisted more than 100 children of incarcerated parents.

“I had a very fortunate life, with a good education,” Basnet said. “I should give it to somebody else.”

Basnet was just 21 when she discovered her calling, she said. While her family ran a successful business, she was studying social work in college. As part of her studies, she visited a women’s prison and was appalled by the dire conditions. She also was shocked to discover children living behind bars.

One baby girl grabbed Basnet’s shawl and gave her a big smile.

“I felt she was calling me,” Basnet said. “I went back home and told my parents about it. They told me it was a normal thing and that in a couple of days I’d forget it. But I couldn’t forget.”

Basnet decided to start a day care to get incarcerated children out from behind the prison walls. While her parents were against the idea at first — she had no job or way to sustain it financially — eventually they helped support her. But prison officials, government workers and even some of the imprisoned mothers she approached doubted that someone her age could handle such a project.

“When I started, nobody believed in me,” Basnet said. “People thought I was crazy. They laughed at me.”

But Basnet was undaunted. She got friends to donate money and she rented a building in Kathmandu to house her new organization, the Early Childhood Development Center. She furnished it largely by convincing her parents that they needed a new refrigerator or kitchen table; when her parents’ replacement would arrive, she’d whisk the old one to her center.

Just two months after she first visited the prison, Basnet began to care for five children. She picked them up at the prison every weekday morning, brought them to her center and then returned them in the afternoon. Basnet’s program was the first of its kind in Kathmandu; when she started, some of the children in her care had never been outside a prison.

My life would have been dark without (Pushpa). I would’ve probably always had a sad life.
Laxmi, 14 years old

Two years later, Basnet established the Butterfly Home, a children’s home where she herself has lived for the past five years. While she now has a few staff members who help her, Basnet is still very hands on.

“We do cooking, washing, shopping,” she said. “It’s amazing, I never get tired. (The children) give me the energy. … The smiles of my children keep me motivated.”

Coordinating all of this is no easy task. But at the Butterfly Home, the older kids help care for the younger ones and everyone pitches in with household chores. The atmosphere feels like an extremely large family, a feeling that’s fostered by Basnet, who smothers the children with love. The children reciprocate by calling her “Mamu,” which means “Mommy.”

“I don’t ever get a day off, but if I [didn’t] have the children around me, it would be hard,” she said. “When I’m with them, I’m happy.”

Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2012 CNN Heroes

All the children are at the Butterfly Home with the consent of the imprisoned parent. When Basnet hears about an imprisoned child, she’ll visit the prison — even in remote areas of the country — and tell the parent what she can provide. If the parent agrees, Basnet brings the child back.

She is still eager, however, for the children to maintain relationships with their parents. During school holidays, she sends the younger children to the prisons to visit, and she brings them food, clothing and fresh water during their stay. Ultimately, Basnet wants the families to reunite outside prison, and 60 of her children have been able to do just that.

Parents like Kum Maya Tamang are grateful for Basnet’s efforts. Tamang has spent the last seven years in a women’s prison in Kathmandu. When she was convicted on drug charges, she had no other options for child care, so she brought her two daughters to jail with her. When she heard about Basnet’s program, she decided to let them go live with her.

“If Pushpa wasn’t around, (they) could have never gotten an education … (they) would have probably had to live on the streets,” she said. “I feel she treats (them) the way I would.”

Tamang’s oldest daughter, Laxmi, said she can’t imagine life without Basnet.

“My life would have been dark without her,” said Laxmi, 14. “I would’ve probably always had a sad life. But now I won’t, because of Pushpa.”

In 2009, Basnet started a program to teach the parents how to make handicrafts, which she sells to raise money for the children’s care. Both mothers and fathers participate. It not only gives them skills that might help them support themselves when they’re released, but it also helps them feel connected to their children.

“Often, they think that they’re useless because they’re in prison,” Basnet said. “I want to make them feel that they are contributing back to us.”

Making ends meet is always a struggle, though. The children help by making greeting cards that Basnet sells as part of her handicraft business. In the past, she has sold her own jewelry and possessions to keep the center going.

Her biggest concern is trying to find ways to do more to give the children a better future. She recently set up a bank account to save for their higher educations, and one day she hopes to buy or build a house so they’ll always have a place to call home. Their happiness is always foremost in her thoughts.

“This is what I want to do with my life,” she said. “It makes me feel (good) when I see that they are happy, but it makes me want to work harder. … I want to fulfill all their dreams.”

From here >

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Nepal gets a sex shop

Posted on 3 February 2012 by NepaliKuire

They’ve taken the jump from sex-education as science to sex-ed as entertainment. Here’s the new shop on the block’s website.

—

Nepal’s first sex shop a Sweet Secret

Sex toys are still a difficult topic in many South Asian countries. In India they’re often sold as massage products because officially they’re banned. Even though the demand on black markets across the region is high, a law change is nowhere near in sight. But across the border in Nepal, the authorities have shown a much more progressive attitude towards the positive effects of sex toys.

“When new customers come here the first thing they ask us ‘Is this legal?’ When we show our license they are relieved to find out that it’s legal what they are doing,” says Manish Paudel, the owner of the first shop for sex toys in Nepal.

Paudel’s shop Sweet Secret is located on one of Kathmandu’s busiest streets, but the entry is discretely tucked away in a corner ally. That was one of the criteria the government office set for Paudel before he could open his shop. Though legal in Nepal, his products cannot be openly displayed.

To Paudel this limitation is not an issue. With a steadily growing client base, his shop has become so successful that he’s opening three more branches across Nepal in the coming months.

Promoting safe sex
Sweet Secret provides a wide range of imported products, from dildo’s and colourful vibrators to blow-up dolls. But most customers that come here are not looking for the more ‘kinky’ toys. It’s the basic condoms that sell the best.

“Condoms are slowly becoming widely available in supermarkets all over the country. But people still feel uncomfortable buying from there. Here they feel like we have seen it all,” says Paudel who started his career distributing condoms and promoting safe sex in Nepal’s rural areas.

“Because of my long career promoting safe sex as an NGO worker in Nepal it was easier for me to convince the authorities of the health care reasons behind opening this shop.”

Paudel says a lot of his customers are infected with an STD and are looking for safer ways to enjoy themselves. By using sex toys they are not spreading the disease.

Nepalis are becoming increasingly aware of safe sexual behaviour, a report by the National Centre for AIDS and STD Control in Nepal recently confirmed. In 2011 the number of HIV infections and active Syphilis cases stabilized.

Questions
Co-owner of Sweet Secret, Prabin Dhakal, says he tries his best to boost his customer’s morale when they come to him with questions. Sex education in Nepal leaves much to be desired, he says.

“There are men who come in here with the question if a blow-up doll feels the same as a real woman. Of course it’s plastic – our toys are only a substitute, not the real thing!”

To address the many questions they get from the often shy Nepalese as effectively as possible, there is an online question desk on the shop’s website. The owners say they receive about 200 questions a day via this service.

“We take the time to answer all these questions. We have now invited a doctor to come to the shop once a week, so our customers can consult him before buying our products,” Explains Dhakal.

Sweet secret
Nepal’s sweet secret is slowly becoming a topic of public discussion, with more sex shops opening around the country. Nepali men who go abroad to work now pick up toys for their wives before they leave. And who knows, they might be taking Nepal’s changing morals with them across South Asia’s borders.

From Radio Netherlands >

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