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“Discrimination and neglect are threatening women’s survival in the Asia-Pacific region where women suffer from some of the world’s lowest rates of political representation, employment and property ownership. Their lack of participation in productive sector is depressing economic growth,” says the new Asia Pacific Human Development Report on Gender.

Launching the report, Power, Voice and Rights: A Turning Point for Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific, Hon’ble Binda Pandey, Chairperson of the Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles Committee of the Constituent Assembly said, “Nepal has already made its way towards passing the bill on domestic violence in the legislative parliament which is a big leap in the right direction. Also the 33 per cent representation of women in the Constituent Assembly is noteworthy progress. However the big challenge of turning the Laws, Acts and Policies into implementation and practice requires change in attitude of all women and men in the country”.

Speaking at the launch event, UNDP Resident Representative Mr. Robert Piper stated, “Gender equality is good economics. Keeping women off the labour market simply costs money. Increasing their participation in the labour market will boost a country’s income, more so in countries with low current participation.”

The report focuses on three major areas of analysis illustrated in terms of Economic Power, Political Voice & Human and Legal Rights.

In the context of Nepal, the gap in women and men’s average daily earnings is alarmingly wide with women earning only 60% of what men earn while doing similar kinds of job in both the agricultural and non-agricultural sector. The report states that giving women economic opportunities also has an effect on gender-based violence – a problem common to the Asia-Pacific region. When women develop a stronger position to bargain and negotiate within their homes, it reduces their dependency on male relatives and frees them to make possibly different choices — including getting out of oppressive situations —that can improve their own welfare as well as that of their children and families.

The political voice of women has improved in Nepal with the recent secured 1/3 quota in the Constituent Assembly. In comparison, only about 1/3 of countries in Asia and the Pacific have quota systems to enhance women’s participation in politics. The report argues that the public policy decisions that the Governments make have fundamental implications on gender equality outcomes as they define the extent of opportunities and entitlements for women and men along with democratic space for civil society and for representing the interests of social groups with less representation, and effective delivery of social services.

Finally, with regards to rights, Gender-based violence is pervasive with more than one-tenth of women in the Asia-Pacific region reporting assaults by their partners. Nearly half of the South Asian countries lack laws on Domestic Violence. Nepal’s positive moves towards greater legal protection and equality for women needs to be continued.

This also marks a new beginning at the start of a new decade for Nepal, so that it can move forward to a more stable, peaceful future.

A group of young Nepali men and women will leave their military lives behind and return to civilian life after a discharge ceremony in the main Maoist army cantonment in Sindhuli in the central region of the country today.

This is the first group of young people disqualified from the Maoist army as children or late recruits who will now be discharged.

“Today marks the first step in the return to civilian life for thousands of Nepalis who have been living in cantonments since 2006. This ceremony is an important milestone in the ongoing peace process and will, we hope, speed up other steps laid out in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement,” said United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Robert Piper.

These young people are among 4,008 individuals – including some 500 below 18 years old — due to be released over the next 40 days The rehabilitation process will now give these young people the opportunity to gain new skills – returning to school or learning a trade – provided by the Government of Nepal with the support of the United Nations.

The discharge, which is scheduled to be completed in seven cantonments across the country by mid February 2010, is part of an Action Plan signed in December 2009 by the Government of Nepal, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal – Maoist (UCPN-M) and the United Nations. When it is verified that the UCPN-M has fully complied with the plan, the party can be considered for removal from the list of parties that recruit and use children, which is included in the annual UN Secretary-General’s report on Children and Armed Conflict.

Before Thursday’s ceremony at the cantonment these young people completed a discharge process carried out by various United Nations agencies. They were briefed about rehabilitation options given civilian clothing and identity cards. In the coming months, a United Nations team will contact those discharged to monitor and assess how they are adjusting to civilian life. Nearly 3,000 of those disqualified were minors on 25 May 2006 at the time of the ceasefire. Today, about one dozen are under 16 years of age and roughly 500 are under 18. About a third are female.

“The release of these young people sends out a symbolic message for the New Year,” said UNICEF Nepal Representative Gillian Mellsop. “Not only can these young people now finally get on with their lives, but this also marks a new beginning at the start of a new decade for Nepal, so that it can move forward to a more stable, peaceful future.”

Nepal’s peace process is in danger of collapse. The fall of the Maoist-led government, a mess largely of the Maoists’ own making, was a symptom of the deeper malaise underlying the political settlement. Consensus has steadily given way to a polarisation which has fed the more militaristic elements on both sides. While all moderate politicians still publicly insist that there is no alternative to pursuing the process, private talk of a return to war – led by generals of the Nepalese Army who have never reconciled themselves to peace – has grown louder. Outright resumption of hostilities remains unlikely in the short term but only concerted efforts to re-establish a minimal working consensus and a national unity government including the Maoists can avert the likelihood of a more dangerous erosion of trust. Strong international backing, with India eschewing short-term interference in favour of longer-term guardianship of the process it itself initiated, will be essential.

The immediate cause of the Maoists’ departure from government on 4 May 2009 was their bungled attempt to dismiss the army chief. As the consent for action that they had secured from coalition partners unravelled under external pressure, they pushed ahead unilaterally. Their legally dubious sacking order prompted an even more contentious intervention by the ceremonial president to countermand it. Maoist leader Prachanda quit on grounds of principle; the question of the balance of power between prime minister and president remains in dispute.

The Maoist resignation made the formation of a new administration an urgent necessity and, by Nepal’s standards, the transition was relatively prompt and smooth. However, the new government, led by the centrist Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), UML, is inherently unstable and incapable of addressing the most pressing challenges. Backed by 22 parties, it is yet to take full form and its major constituents are internally riven. Many UML leaders are openly sceptical of the new government, while the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) is now formally split. Between them, they have achieved the unlikely feat of making the Nepali Congress (NC) look the most cohesive and internally democratic of the non-Maoist parties.

The Maoists had not proved as effective in power as many had hoped. Moreover, they alienated two important constituencies: India (both by appearing to make overtures towards China and by refusing to become a pliant, moderate force) and the Kathmandu upper middle classes (by making them pay taxes and failing to deliver basic services, in particular electricity). Yet their main problem is their own refusal to give clear and credible assurances on their commitment to political pluralism and non-violence. Prominent ideologues within the party have given added credence to the argument that they will never alter their strategic goal of state capture and de facto totalitarian rule. In response, the leadership’s insistence that the party has embraced multiparty democracy has been less than fully convincing.

On the other side, the army has adopted a more overt, assertive political role. It is encouraged and supported by many who see it as the only credible opposition to the Maoists. It not only survived the republican transition but has thrived. Helped by timorous parties, it has successfully pushed for a substantial budgetary increase, protected its de facto autonomy, retained its full strength and pressed for new lethal arms imports – in breach of the ceasefire.

Behind much of the recent instability lies an Indian change of course. New Delhi framed the peace deal and acted as its de facto guarantor, pressing all parties to comply with its terms. Never able to digest the Maoist victory and uncomfortable with popular demands for change, it has pursued increasingly interventionist tactics through proxies in Nepali political parties while continuing its policy of ring-fencing the army as the most reliable bastion against Maoist takeover or anarchy. Its resolute opposition to all but token People’s Liberation Army (PLA) integration has unbalanced the peace equation without offering any alternative.

The background against which Kathmandu’s incestuous intrigues are played out is neither stable nor unchanging. Public security remains weak, alarmingly so in several areas. Local governance remains patchy at best and non-existent in places. Peace committees bringing together parties and civil society representatives are functional in some districts but lack a coherent agenda. Identity-based and other newer political movements are impatient with a constitutional process that, while not stalled, looks less and less likely to deliver a broadly acceptable new constitution on schedule. Civil society, a crucial force in the early stages of the peace process, is divided and demoralised.

India’s perceived partisanship has not helped international cohesion. From being the leader of the pack, successfully lining up other international players behind its strategy, it has become something of a lone wolf. It continues to criticise the UN mission, whose credibility was dented by a videotape showing Maoist leader Prachanda boasting that he had duped them into accepting vastly inflated PLA numbers. The UN would like to claim success and get out but cannot refuse requests to monitor arms as long as the situation – over which it has no direct influence – remains unresolved. In the meantime its role in preserving a fragile peace and affording Nepal some shelter from total Indian domination is under-appreciated.

Donors are keen to return to normal development activities and have been willing to fund the peace process. But their patience is wearing thin, conditions for business as usual are yet to materialise and international funding is subsidising a bloated and unaffordable security sector. The army alone far outnumbers the national civil service; it, cantoned PLA combatants and the paramilitary armed police are of no use in addressing the basic need for law and order.

It is true that all parties are still talking and there is a tradition of last-minute deals to stave off disaster. The same could happen again. But that should not obscure the fact that the rifts between the major players have grown wider and the grounds for compromise narrower. Averting a slide back to conflict will require a clear-sighted recognition of the dangers, genuine cooperation between Nepal’s parties to address them and much more solid international backing for the process, starting with a decisive lead from India.

(Source: International Crisis Group,Asia Report N°173, You can read full Report at: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6269&l=1)