By Hallie Schiffman-Shilo

Hallie Schiffman-Shilo is The Asia Foundation’s Program Assistant for the Women’s Empowerment Program based in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at hshilo@asiafound.org-dc.org.

Human trafficking is one of the most egregious human rights abuses. Each year, millions of men, women, and children are trafficked within their own countries or abroad into exploitative, abusive, and often illegal labor sectors. Many trafficking victims are forced into sexual slavery, domestic servitude, or hard labor and suffer from both physical and psychological abuse. Official statistics are hard to determine because of the illicit nature of trafficking. However, the International Labor Organization estimates that there are 12.3 million people in forced or bonded labor, forced child labor, or sexual servitude at any given time. Furthermore, an estimated 80 percent of transnational trafficking victims are women and girls.
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By Bishnu Sapkota

Bishnu Sapkota is The Asia Foundation’s Program Advisor in Nepal. He can be reached at bishnu@taf.org.np.

Nepal’s peace process has seen significant achievements in the last three years, but not all has gone well. In retrospect, Local Peace Committees (LPCs) feature as one of the most prominent failures.

Initially, the peace committees were designed to sustain peace by providing a common forum for people to locally implement national peace agreements. LPCs were to promote the notion that the responsibility to maintain peace at the local level lies with the people. They would bring together political parties, NGOs, and relevant local government agencies to prevent potential conflict, resolve them as they arise, and promote peace in the district. Following intense discussions, the LPCs were officially approved by the Cabinet in late 2006.  The Cabinet made provisions for peace committees to be created in each of the 75 districts of the country. However, the committees never could quite achieve any of the stated objectives.

Here’s what I think went wrong.
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By Sagar Prasai

Sagar Prasai is The Asia Foundation’s Deputy Country Representative in Nepal. He can be reached at sagar@taf.org.np.

Just nine months after taking office, Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (known as Prachanda) resigned on May 4, 2009, citing the president’s lack of cooperation on his efforts to establish “civilian supremacy” over the Nepali Army. The events that led to his resignation unfolded quickly and predictably. On April 20, the Maoist government asked for an explanation from the Chief of the Army Staff (CoAS) citing three incidents of insubordination. The incidences cited were controversial administrative decisions, but whether they amounted to insubordination is debatable, given how serious a meaning the term carries in civil-military relations lexicon.
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On Monday, Nepal’s Prime Minister, Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal (also known as Prachanda), resigned from his post after a confrontation with the president. Following the dramatic May 4 announcement, Dr. Sagar Prasai, The Asia Foundation’s deputy country representative in Nepal, told Bloomberg News, “A national unity government is the only viable option. It is very difficult for an alternative government by other parties and without the Maoists to be formed.” Read the full Bloomberg News story, “Nepal’s Premier Resigns Amid Row Over Army Chief.” Dr. Prasai can be reached at sagar@taf.org.np.

Click image for videos

The Asia Foundation’s “Election Season: Nepal” video series documents events surrounding the country’s 2008 election, during which Prachanda’s CPN-Maoist party won a plurality of seats in Nepal’s Constituent Assembly. The Foundation’s video footage was shot during the build-up to the elections. Watch the series on YouTube, including “Part One: Campaign” that shows Dr. Prasai as he walks through a motorcycle rally for the Communist Party of Nepal (UML), and “Part Six: Polls Close” in which Dr. Prasai visits the poll observer’s headquarters on election eve as reports from observers across Nepal come in.

By V. Bruce J. Tolentino

Bruce Tolentino is The Asia Foundation’s Chief Economist and can be reached at btolentino@asiafound.org. He blogs here about George Varughese, the Foundation’s representative in Afghanistan, who leaves Kabul to take the reins in our Nepal office starting May 1.

After four years of stellar service in Afghanistan, George Varughese is moving on to represent The Asia Foundation in Nepal. Earlier this year, I was fortunate to participate in one of many going-away tributes to George – one organized by The Asia Foundation’s Kabul staff. The events of that day are going to be difficult to forget.

By Afghan tradition, non-family events are exclusive to either men or women, so the farewell tributes I attended were all-male. Earlier in the week, an all-female event had already been held in honor of Kala Gurung, George’s wife (fondly referred to in Kabul as “Mrs. George”).
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By Sagar Prasai

Sagar Prasai is The Asia Foundation’s Deputy Country Representative in Nepal. He can be reached at sagar@taf.org.np.

Think about the difficulties of writing a constitution for a country like Nepal. There are 103 ethnic groups, 17 officially recognized languages, and 19,000 former combatants still in cantonments. In the Constituent Assembly (CA), there are 25 political parties with no one in a clear majority, 601 members who disagree on most everything, 11 constitution drafting sub-committees, three committee rooms, and an anticipated 300,000 submissions to be read. Plus, barring public holidays, there are about 330 days left to complete the job.

Due to delays in every preparatory step – from drafting procedural rules to public consultations – the drafting calendar has become so compressed that if the CA seriously focuses on logistics, it is likely to fail politically. If it seriously focuses on politics, it is likely to fail logistically.
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By Jannie Kwok

Jannie Kwok is a Program Officer at The Asia Foundation’s office in Kathmandu, Nepal. She can be reached at jannie@taf.org.np.

I recently watched a local Nepali theater group skillfully combine theater with politics to explore gender-based violence in conflict-affected communities.

Developed in the 1970s by a Brazilian political activist and director, “The International Theater of the Oppressed” is a method that has been practiced in theaters across the globe to help communities address social injustices. A drama is acted out in scripted mode until it reaches the climax; then, at that moment, the audience is asked to collectively reflect on the problem and is invited into the drama to “rehearse” the preferred ending they envision for their communities.
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By Jeremy Gross

Jeremy Gross is the Foundation’s Election Program Manager based in the Indonesia office. He can be reached at jeremy@tafindo.org.

Seminal elections in a country’s history, such as those after a period of civil war, military rule or at the demise of an authoritarian regime, are invariably marked by the arrival of troupes of international election observers; their duty: to comment on the overall election environment and whether or not the elections held are free and fair.

There are numerous examples of this from the Asia region, including Cambodia in 1993 and Indonesia in 1999. In 2008, both Nepal and Bangladesh held milestone elections, the former after the then-government and Marxist guerillas signed a peace accord, the latter to end two years of rule by the military-installed Caretaker Government.

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By June Ghimire

June Ghimire is a Program Officer for The Asia Foundation in Nepal. She can be reached at jghimire@asiafound.org.

Recently, a Nepalese radio production team from Antenna Foundation Nepal, a radio production and training house based in Kathmandu, traveled to eight American states to gather stories from over 300 members of the Nepali diaspora in the United States. The team, including Madhu Acharya and Rajan Parajuli, conducted countless interviews, over 60 of which are featured in a 12-episode series called Postcards from America.  The stories range from student experiences to business opportunities, state services to civic responsibility, discrimination to rule of law, and reflections from once famous Nepali celebrities on their dreams and sacrifices.
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By Preeti Thapa

Preeti Thapa is The Asia Foundation’s Program Manager for Community Mediation, Conflict Transformation and Peace Building in Nepal.

In the area of Devpura Village Development Community in Dhanusha District, Nepal, Kaladhar Jha had a property dispute with his brother, Devendra, which went on for almost 20 years. Even during festive occasions, like marriage ceremonies and social events, the two brothers refused to visit each other’s homes. Since the two brothers faced a lot of tension for a long time, Devendra Jha, who had heard about something called community mediation, decided to apply for mediation services. Eventually ” somewhat miraculously ” the two brothers were persuaded to attend mediation.  After a few hours their decades-long dispute had been resolved. Now the brothers are on very good terms and have started living in a joint household again.

The Asia Foundation promotes community-based mediation in Nepal, where trying cases in regular court can be very expensive and time consuming.  Mediation can improve access to justice and help establish a culture of peace building within communities.
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