Gender Equity and Rights
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EQUITY FOR WOMEN AND MARGINALISED GROUPS

Women and socially disadvantaged groups are routinely discriminated against and increasingly more vulnerable today. Society in Nepal is deeply patriarchal which has resulted in severe gender gaps in access to schools, healthcare, livelihoods and incomes, and even nutritive food; illiteracy, malnutrition and economic dependence further restricts them from asserting their equal rights. Violence against women and children is rampant and often conducted with impunity, permitted and even supported by customary laws; this is amplified for women in marginalized communities. Adolescent girls and women suffer a range of adverse customary practices such as child marriage, dowry, and multiple forms of abuse and violence including trafficking, molestation and rape.

Gender sensitivity is entrenched across the spectrum of Pragya’s work. Aspects of our livelihoods work are... Read More

Women and socially disadvantaged groups are routinely discriminated against and increasingly more vulnerable today. Society in Nepal is deeply patriarchal which has resulted in severe gender gaps in access to schools, healthcare, livelihoods and incomes, and even nutritive food; illiteracy, malnutrition and economic dependence further restricts them from asserting their equal rights. Violence against women and children is rampant and often conducted with impunity, permitted and even supported by customary laws; this is amplified for women in marginalized communities. Adolescent girls and women suffer a range of adverse customary practices such as child marriage, dowry, and multiple forms of abuse and violence including trafficking, molestation and rape.

Gender sensitivity is entrenched across the spectrum of Pragya’s work. Aspects of our livelihoods work are aimed. exclusively at women, whilst our food security work focusses on the nutritional health of women. Our health programme has an emphasis on maternal and reproductive healthcare, supporting women and adolescent girls. Pragya also works to combat gender-based violence in its multiple forms and contexts, including socioeconomic, psychological, and physical violence.

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Women’s Vigilance Committees to end VAW

Women living in Nepal’s poorest rural communities have suffered the most and the longest from the effects of the 2015 earthquake...

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EQUITY FOR WOMEN AND MARGINALISED GROUPS

PREVENTING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS

Gender-based Violence against women and girls continues to be one of the most obdurate problems in Nepal, implicitly supported by a deeply patriarchal society and a passive submission to it by women due to their economic dependence and social conditioning. Some of the common gender based violence faced by girls and women of Nepal include witchcraft accusations, domestic violence, child marriage, marital rape, polygamy, dowry related harassment, female infanticide and trafficking of women and girls for sexual abuse, among others. Apart from these, implicit and explicit forms of violence against women include teenage pregnancy and early motherhood, gender disparity in school enrolment as well as overall educational attainment, and the poor condition of women’s nutritional status, to name a few. Probably the worst among the forms of atrocities against women and girls is that of human trafficking, which is associated with significant spikes resulting from economic and social crises at the household level or even political strife or natural disasters.

EQUITY FOR WOMEN AND MARGINALISED GROUPS

PREVENTING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS

Pragya is dedicated to the prevention of violence against women and girls in all regions in which we work, and we take a multifaceted approach to supporting women and girls at risk of or experiencing violence. We have designed a comprehensive social protection programme aimed at primary-prevention of violence against women, with a focus on women of ethnic minority communities who suffer much higher levels of violence, and are implementing it in high-risk areas.

Aiming for assertion and active resistance of violence from women and girls, we foster local leadership and grassroots support networks. We select women with leadership potential in communities who receive intensive tutoring in the key legislations and support structures concerning GBV, as well as in counselling for women affected by GBV; these Women Counsellors act as anchors for village-level women’s peer support groups established by Pragya. Through these groups we run assertiveness sessions, designed to shift women’s default response to violence away from passive submission and towards active resistance. 

Pragya has also trained women’s leaders in areas particularly vulnerable to VAWG and trafficking (in districts affected by the 2015 earthquake), and assisted them to set up Women’s Vigilance Committeesand operate Helplines for women in distress and at risk of trafficking and GBV. They have been sensitised of the issue of trafficking and the victimisation process as well as of the state and non-state agencies and shelters that they can access for protection and support; they have also been supported in communicating on risks and generating awareness among their groups, and dealing with any cases of VAWG in a timely manner.

We also identify families severely affected by livelihood losses, rendering the women and girls in these families at grave risk of GBV, and single women without livelihood assets, and aid them with small livelihoods assets and opportunities to help them overcome the economic crisis they are suffering.

EQUITY FOR WOMEN AND MARGINALISED GROUPS

PREVENTING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS

GEOGRAPHY / LOCATION

Our work to address violence against women and girls has been/ is being delivered in districts of Sindhupalchok, Dhading and Nuwakot in Nepal.

  • ISSUES
  • What we do
  • Impacts

EQUITY FOR WOMEN AND MARGINALISED GROUPS

EMPOWERING WOMEN

Women and girls in Nepal and particularly among the remote and chronically poor communities that Pragya works with, experience multiple disadvantages. They are disproportionately affected by poverty, suffer deeper levels of hunger and malnutrition, along with lower access to healthcare (even sexual and reproductive care) and education, and frequent gender-based violence and discrimination as a result of the prevalent patriarchal societies and practices. Although women carry significant part of the family’s livelihood related workload as well as the burden of household chores, they have little control on the family’s assets or finances.

EQUITY FOR WOMEN AND MARGINALISED GROUPS

EMPOWERING WOMEN

Pragya believes in building a brighter future for women struggling to thrive in strongly patriarchal societies, though initiatives aimed at promoting economic independence in conjunction with informing and supporting women on other vital matters impacting their circumstances. 

We work to empower women through the formation of village-level women’s peer support groups, oriented to address a range of pertinent socioeconomic issues such as fundamental rights, menstrual hygiene, the importance of educating children and the negative impacts of early marriage. The peer groups are also facilitated to access key government schemes, water access and improved sanitation.

Pragya fosters leadership among women and their effective participation and representation in social and political spheres. Apart from the women’s peer support groups which foster health and protection from violence for women; women are also trained and supported to lead in Water & Sanitation Councils set up in villages under Pragya’s WASH programmes. Women are provided special confidence-building and assertiveness training, rights education and awareness on development avenues. 

We seek to bring income generating opportunities to women, with livelihoods projects adapted to women’s circumstances in the poorest communities. We support women in the uptake of niche agriculture, as well as in apiculture, goat-rearing, poultry, and equipping them with the necessary start-up inputs, tools, and training. Women’s Self Help Groups have been formed in several villages and provided training, facilitation for savings & credit, and support for collaborative endeavour, as well as with linkages to local government departments and programmes and formal financial institutions.

Rural women are the traditional managers of natural resources and have the task of collecting fuelwood, water, fodder and various food supplements from the forests for their households, one that is becoming increasingly onerous however as forests recede due to habitat degradation. Respecting their traditional role, Pragya involves women strongly in the management of Common Property Resources, training them in sustainable use of natural resources and supporting them for group farming of these resources.

EQUITY FOR WOMEN AND MARGINALISED GROUPS

EMPOWERING WOMEN

GEOGRAPHY / LOCATION

Our work on empowering women and girls has been/ is being delivered in districts of Sindhupalchok, Dhading and Nuwakot in Nepal.

  • ISSUES
  • What we do
  • Impacts