WUNRN
NEPAL - REINTEGRATION CHALLENGES FOR
MAOIST FEMALE EX-COMBATANTS
|
|
|
Going
home isn't easy |
KAILALI, 14 April 2010 (IRIN) - Former
female Maoist combatants in
Female
combatants made up a sizable portion of the Maoist’s military wing, the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with the party saying a third of the soldiers
were women.
Nearly
1,000 women were among 3,000 former child soldiers
discharged from the PLA in February.
But the
women, who were treated as equals in the PLA and bore arms, are now
encountering rejection from their communities and struggling with traditional
female roles.
“My
family doesn’t accept me and society looks at me with hatred,” Rachna Shahi,
21, said near her home in Kailali District, about 600km northwest of
Barely 15
when she joined the PLA to take part in the so-called “People’s War” - a
conflict which left 13,000 dead and thousands more injured - life for her since
being discharged has been difficult.
Not
only did her family in Dailekh District, 500km northwest of
“I
don’t know how I will survive now and where to live,” said Shahi.
Struggle for
equality
Women in
Despite
recent efforts to address gender inequality through legislation, women are
deeply limited in areas such as asset and property ownership, inheritance,
income and employment conditions and political representation, as documented by
the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
Maoist
policy includes plans for social and cultural reform, including the end of
discrimination in caste, ethnicity and gender, and former female fighters say
they were attracted to the party by the prospect of ending social inequities.
“We
hoped to dismantle the old society and replace [it] with a new progressive
society that respects equal rights of women,” said Shanta Karki, a female
ex-combatant.
Yet,
instead of achieving equal status, ex-fighters are now confronted by
expectations they will once again assume subservient roles, where they are
largely confined to household work, activists say.
“Society
has barely changed when it comes to women’s roles. They are still expected to
play their traditional role as merely a wife, sister or daughter-in-law,” said
gender activist Babita Basnet.
Rejection
The
Maoists had a surprise victory in the country’s 2008 election and emerged as
the largest party in parliament, a win analysts said was due to support from
marginalized communities, including the lowest Dalit caste, and the
electorate’s desire for change.
Nevertheless,
many people still hold bitter memories of the conflict in which Maoists killed
people and left others disabled - and communities have yet to be advised on how
to deal with returnees.
“The
mainstream Nepali community is still in a retaliatory state of mind because
many of them suffered at the hands of these Maoist soldiers during the armed
conflict,” psychosocial expert Navaraj Upadhyaya of the Transcultural
Psychosocial Organization (TPO)
Nepal, one of the country’s leading psychosocial organizations, told IRIN.
Rejection
of the ex-combatants by some Nepalese is also due to their perceived
association with the continuing Maoist goal of eliminating the traditional
Nepali caste system.
During
their time as soldiers, many women married outside their caste, and without
their families’ consent, making their acceptance into the community at a later
date all the more difficult.
Perceptions
of family honour and sexual purity are an additional hurdle. Many families
believe that while their daughters were on the battlefield, they were with
other men outside marriage - something that could bring shame on their family.
|
|
|
Many
villagers who suffered under the Maoists are not ready to accept them |
Counselling
To
address this, aid workers working closely with female Maoist ex-combatants say
counselling to help the women reintegrate should be given top priority: The
former fighters need more than government or UN help to become economically
independent, they say.
“Counselling
was needed prior to their discharge but we didn’t have any access to the
soldiers in the camps,” said TPO’s Upadhyaya.
TPO had
proposed setting up a counselling programme inside the camps, but its offer was
turned down by Maoist leaders, who told TPO their soldiers did not need
counselling, he claimed.
Some
say a fresh approach is needed to help the women reintegrate.
“A
holistic approach is needed to help their proper rehabilitation and
reintegration. [They] have specific needs and face more difficulties than the
male [ex-]combatants,” said Jamuna Poudel, programme director of the Centre for
Victims of Torture (CVICT), a
local NGO specializing in the counselling of conflict victims.
Many
former female soldiers have reproductive health problems, face gender-based
violence, need support for their children and are less likely to find jobs than
their male counterparts, she said.
“They
have witnessed and engaged in a lot of violence… All they knew was how to hold
a gun and fight. Now suddenly they are on the street alone. We have to be
really concerned about their state of mind,” said Anup Poudel, a psychosocial
counselling expert at CVICT [no relation of Jamuna].
================================================================
To contact the list administrator, or to leave the list, send an email to:
wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com. Thank you.