WUNRN
Women for Human Rights Nepal, Single
Women's Group - WHR
NEPAL - SINGLE WOMEN'S ISSUES
ADDRESSED IN
NATIONAL GOVERNMENT POLICIES &
PROGRAMMES
July 16, 2011 - Thousands of single women of Nepal are striving towards fulfilling their basic daily needs. Due to untimely death of father and poor economic condition, many children are deprived from education and forced to work as a child labourer. Young single women have been compelled to depend on others and consequently been abused.
With
this reality and the demand of all single women, WHR filed a case in Supreme
Court in coordination with Pro-Public in order to remove the age bar regarding
monthly widows' allowance. With the appeal from all single women groups from
districts and continuously lobbying and advocating by WHR for past three years,
the Supreme Court on 10th March, 2010 declared its decision for Nepal
Government to provide the widows' allowance monthly to all single women
regardless of age and in consideration to the availability of resources of the
government and economic condition of the single women.
In
this regard, Nepalese Government allocated budget for the social
security allowance to all the single women regardless of age in the 2068/069
National Policy and Programme. Earlier, the single women of above 60
years only received the widows' allowance provided by the Nepal Government.
Similarly,
in the National Policy and Programme, arrangement has been made to provide
concessional loan without collateral to the cooperatives operated by single
women, provisions have been made for the tax deduction for the single women,
receiving skill development trainings for 21,000 single women and involving
single women in every empowerment activities through the local government.
In
addition, the collection of statistics of widows from the census has also been
accomplished.
This
brings a huge change and a huge relief for thousands of single women in Nepal.
On
this achievement and success, WHR team and all the single women groups would
like to express sincere thanks to the Nepalese Government and
all its concerned bodies for addressing the issues of single women in
the National Policy and Programme.
Similarly,
we would like to extend our special heartfelt gratitude to Finance
Minister, Government Officials, CA Female
Parliamentarians, our Stakeholders, National
and International Partners, Donors, Media
Channels, Well Wishers and Supporters for
supporting us in this great achievement and being the part of the movement.