In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Eighteen year-old Sita* met Prakash in Banke, a district in the far west of Nepal, where she lived with her parents. Prakash came to her village during a festival celebration, and Sita’s uncle introduced them. The two quickly fell in love and decided to elope. Prakash told Sita that he had a job waiting for him in Delhi, and the two of them traveled to the border to cross into India.

Upon Prakash’s suggestion, they took different rickshaws to cross the border. They traveled to Delhi by bus, and Prakash set Sita up in a private house. He told her that he had to travel to another city for work, but that he would return in two weeks. He never returned, and instead, Sita was sold into a brothel a few weeks later by the landlady of the house where she was staying. In the brothel, Sita was beaten, tortured, and coerced into serving 20 to 25 male clients a day.

After a year in the brothel, Sita fell ill and was taken to receive treatment at a nearby medical center. She managed to escape from the hospital, and with the assistance of a Nepali whom she met during her escape, returned to Nepal and was reunited with her family. A month later, Sita was approached by the Center for Legal Research and Resource Development (CeLRRd), a paralegal committee organized by a local NGO, which encouraged her to go to the local police and file a report against Prakash. Unfortunately, Sita was too traumatized to tell her story and couldn’t garner enough evidence to file a case.

Sita was then referred to CeLRRd’s Victim Legal Aid Lawyer in Nepalgunj. Under The Asia Foundation’s USAID-funded Counter Trafficking in Persons (CTIP) program, a lawyer worked closely with Sita to ensure she understood her legal rights and the victim protection provisions of the Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act 2007 of Nepal. Equipped with an increased understanding of her rights and of victim protection strategies, Sita filed a First-Incident-Report with the Nepal Police. On the basis of this report, the police carried out an investigation and eventually arrested Prakash.

Sita’s case was filed in the district court and CeLRRd’s CTIP-funded Victim Legal Aid Lawyer represented her. She bravely testified against Prakash, which strengthened the case. During the court hearing, Prakash admitted to having trafficked three other women on the pretense of marriage. With Sita’s testimony and the persistence of the legal counsel, Prakash was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

USAID is currently supporting a five-year project with The Asia Foundation to combat human trafficking in Nepal. Trafficking is a serious problem in Nepal, with as many as 15,000 Nepali women and girls trafficked annually to India and over 30,000 trafficked domestically for involuntary labor and sexual exploitation. To combat these trends, The Asia Foundation and its partners are increasing awareness of the risks of trafficking in six key districts, while working to improve the ability of the judicial system and law enforcement to prosecute traffickers. The program also provides legal aid to trafficking victims like Sita, one of the many beneficiaries of the project’s counseling and court representation for survivors.

*Names have been changed to maintain confidentiality.

This piece was originally published on USAID’s IMPACT blog. Read more about USAID’s work on Trafficking in Persons.

Niyama Rai is The Asia Foundation’s CTIP Monitoring and Evaluation officer in Nepal. She can be reached at niyama@taf.org.np. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

On June 12, the UK’s Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone, arrived in Kathmandu on a three-day visit to share her experiences in combating violence against women and to learn how Nepal is tackling the issue. Heralded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) as the new “Violence Against Women Champion,” it is no surprise that Ms. Featherstone chose Nepal as her first destination on her visit to the region.

In a conversation with Nepal's Chief Secretary Madhav Prasad Ghimire, Minister Featherstone discusses the country's successes and challenges in the fight against violence against women.

Minister Featherstone’s deep interest in tackling all forms of inequality and violence against minority and vulnerable groups has been a trademark of her service in Parliament. She is a powerful advocate for the eradication of gender-based violence (GBV), not only in the UK but also in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, and now, Nepal. DFID is also one of the leading donors committed to combating GBV in Nepal.

In Nepal, GBV is a pressing human rights crisis that is especially prevalent in a country still recovering from an 11-year conflict that exponentially increased women’s vulnerability to rape, domestic violence, verbal and psychological abuse, and physical and sexual torture. GBV is also a socio-cultural aberration in many districts, and takes on many forms such as child marriage, abuse from in-laws, dowry-related violence, polygamy, Deuki (a ritual offering of young girls to the gods), Chhaupadi (the practice of keeping a menstruating woman in a small shed away from the main house), and accusations of witchcraft.

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The floods of 2010 swept away homes and livelihoods, affecting more than 18 million people and killing more than 1,750 in Pakistan. They also destroyed and contaminated precious water systems integral to the survival of Pakistan’s communities.

The floods that devastated Pakistan in 2010 left women particularly vulnerable. Photo by Qasim Berech/Oxfam.

For example, in Union Council Amaze, a remote location in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, 18 water supply systems and the main water pipeline were completely destroyed. In the mountainous North, whole villages lost their sole sources of water. Women, traditionally responsible for meeting the fresh water needs of households, were forced to travel greater distances in search of water.

Beginning last February with 15 organizations in areas severely affected by the floods, a new program began work in earnest supporting women in reclaiming lost land titles, restarting their devastated businesses, and reestablishing destroyed water systems. Implemented by the Aurat Foundation in collaboration with The Asia Foundation, the program is helping a local NGO, the Rural Development Organization (RDO), restore the water supply in Union Council Amaze. Working over the last few months RDO has already restored two of the 18 destroyed water supply schemes, bringing water to 2,000 residents of the village Chak Elahi.

Hussan Pari, an 86-year-old widow with 31 grandchildren, told RDO workers, “God bless those who rehabilitated this water supply line of my home and made the remaining moments of my life comfortable, because I have fallen twice and injured myself while fetching water. Now I have water connection in my house and I am also using the latrine.”

RDO is one of many organizations providing vital assistance to women in difficult circumstances. The new program, called the Gender Equity Program and funded by USAID in Pakistan, will continue to work through local organizations like RDO with specific expertise in women’s empowerment over the next five years. Some of the work will focus on expanding women’s access to justice (through legal aid centers and help lines); other work will combat gender-based violence; while other work will focus on strengthening the capacity of Pakistani organizations working in these fields. Supporting government entities such as the National Commission on the Status of Women, the Ministry of Women’s Development, and the Ministry of Human Rights, is also a goal.

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Like many manufacturing hubs in the Pearl River Delta region, Sanxiang Town in Guangdong Province has a large migrant population. Though they make up more than half of the total population, they are not considered official residents, due to the hukou system in China that ties residence status and many social services to place of birth.

Research shows that women migrants in China are more vulnerable than men, as they are subject to gender-based discrimination and inequities rising from non-resident status.

In areas with large migrant populations, this dynamic presents a multitude of challenges – from frustration among migrant workers who contribute to the local economy but are treated as second class citizens, to anxiety among residents and local authorities that the influx of migrants will disrupt the social fabric of their community and strain limited local resources.

Beginning in 1999, The Asia Foundation and Sanxiang Women’s Federation, with funding from the Levi Strauss Foundation, began supporting better integration of migrants in Sanxiang through a community-based one-stop-shop model. One-stop-shop models abound – from business licensing to open government information – the idea being that it is both more efficient for governments to provide and easier for users to access a range of related services and information in one location. Recently, this model has been adopted internationally for purposes of assisting migrant workers. For example, in Europe, a number of migrant receiving areas – from large cities like Lisbon and Paris to small towns in England – have established migrant support centers where migrants can access an array of services such as registration, employment, housing, health, education, banking, and recreation. Some centers are government-run and actually provide official services and benefits, while others are operated by non-governmental organizations and provide information on where and how to access such services and benefits.

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Recently, In Asia sat down with Asia Foundation governance specialist in Kabul, Roohafza Ludin, just back from Washington, D.C., where she participated in a seminar at Georgetown University to discuss U.S. foreign policy and the pending reduction of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Ludin, one of a handful of women nominated to participate in the 2010 National Consultative Peace Jirga, talked to In Asia about her passion for education, women’s anxiety over their government’s recent reconciliation plans, and what it takes to bring quality education to Afghanistan’s citizens.

Like many of Afghanistan’s citizens during the 1980s and ‘90s, you and your family fled conflict over the border to Pakistan, where you began your career in education and humanitarian work. When you returned to Afghanistan in 2006, what was your impression of the country you had left when you were 16 years old?

When I returned after doing all that I had done, and as someone who has been through war and migration, I immediately saw that every aspect of the country was in dire need of support – from economic development and education to women’s rights. Despite my commitment to humanitarian work in Pakistan, I felt that I was not doing enough on a personal level to help my country. At the same time, every single thing you do or face in Afghanistan is a challenge. I started working with the government in 2006 after my return as gender advisor to the State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and then as a director in the Office of Parliamentary Affairs in the president’s office.

I was working hard, long hours and received much appreciation for my work from colleagues, who were all trying hard to contribute to positive institution-building and to establish systems in the government and among the three pillars of the state. There were challenges, but there were many achievements, too, despite the fact that I still felt that not enough was being done. Education has always been a priority for me, and I believe it is key to all aspects of development. That’s what ultimately drove me to start thinking about doing something in the field of education.

Is this what motivated you to open a private school in 1998 in your own neighborhood, one of Kabul’s most heavily populated districts?

I must say, the fact that I am educated has been the main thing that has helped me find and actually realize the opportunities that I’ve had. But I saw that so many children, particularly girls, simply did not have access to quality education, especially at the high school and university level. I realized then that whatever we do in Afghanistan, whatever process we take to peace and reconciliation, whether the emphasis is on development, human rights, international support, or all of the above, it all depends on bringing more awareness to citizens about their needs and environments, and to do that, you need education.

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The cover of this week’s The Economist shows a child peering over a mother’s shoulder. The headline: “The end of AIDS?” This week marks the 30th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic, and – the magazine challenges – if the world has the will to do so, it looks as though the plague can now be beaten.

Pioneering AIDS researcher Dr. David Ho has been called “the man who could beat AIDS,” and he seems determined to do just that. In 1996, TIME magazine named Dr. Ho the Person of the Year for his groundbreaking work over the past quarter century. Dr. Ho revolutionized the world’s understanding of HIV/AIDS; his cutting edge research and advocacy catalyzed landmark treatment and prevention programs in China and has saved countless lives.

Today, June 8, in New York City, The Asia Foundation and The Lotus Circle presented Dr. Ho the inaugural Lotus Leadership Award, for his contributions to the health and well-being of Chinese women and children.

“Women and girls are not safe in Asia. This award is significant to me because girls and women in China and across Asia are in need of our help. This award is about hope and our shared efforts to tell her she can,” said Dr. Ho at the event.

Over 220 guests attended the award ceremony, including philanthropists, diplomats, and women’s supporters. Watch an exclusive interview with Dr. Ho, founding scientific director and CEO of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, below, produced by The Asia Foundation’s digital media team.

Since the 1980s, microfinance institutions in Bangladesh, such as the Grameen Bank, have touted the success of women microentrepreneurs in starting and operating thousands of microenterprises throughout the country. While this is certainly an achievement, Bangladeshi women have not achieved the same level of success in the small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector.

In Bangladesh, male small business owners far outnumber female business owners, despite some recent progress. A business owner in Bogra, northern Bangladesh. Photo by Geoffrey Hiller.

The importance of SMEs to overall growth in an economy is well-known. Although the exact definition of SMEs varies from country-to-country, they are generally much larger – in terms of both assets and number of employees – than microenterprises. SMEs are often lifelines for larger firms – including foreign-owned firms – supplying them with raw materials, parts, and services. They are also more productive than microenterprises, driving employment and competition.

On an individual level, starting and operating an SME requires not only entrepreneurial spirit and start-up capital (which many microentrepreneurs have), but also managerial and logistical expertise. In addition, in cumbersome business environments like Bangladesh, starting and operating an SME often requires a business person to be well connected to bureaucrats or at least to networks who can access them. Women entrepreneurs in countries like Bangladesh frequently lack access to such expertise and networks, limiting their ability to become SME entrepreneurs. Moreover, expectations of women’s role in the family as wives, mothers, and homemakers may limit their ability to pursue economic opportunities outside of the home.

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As university students across Mongolia complete final exams this week, 60 girls at two of the top universities in the country came together over the weekend to look back at their first year as recipients of Merali Scholarships.

In September 2010, after a competitive application process, The Asia Foundation, in partnership with the Zorig Foundation, selected the first group of of scholarship recipients. Photo by Matthew Pendergast.

Completing freshman exams represents the culmination of a remarkable year for these students, most of whom did not know if they would be able to attend university at this time last year. This also marked the first time that many of these girls from Mongolia’s countryside have lived on their own, and certainly in the busy capital, Ulaanbaatar.

In Mongolia, only 55 percent of students (45 percent in rural areas) complete upper secondary education. Only 35 percent of students are able to continue their studies and enroll in higher education. Population increases in Ulaanbaatar, and great distances in the vast country, combined with poor infrastructure and seasonal challenges in rural areas, make it more difficult to provide quality education to all children. In the winter and spring of 2010, the country experienced a dzud – a national disaster unique to Mongolia with a drought in summer followed by a severe winter with heavy snow and extreme cold. As a result, more than 8 million livestock died, accounting for almost 20 percent of the nation’s herds. For the one-third of the population that relies on herding for their livelihoods, the situation was devastating. More than 9,000 families lost their entire herd of livestock, and thousands more experienced a reduction of more than 50 percent in herd size. For these families, and the growing number of unemployed in Ulaanbaatar, paying university tuition for their children is just not possible.

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In April, Mukhtaran Mai had to relive the most excruciating memory of her life when the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted all but one of the accused in her rape case. The decision elicited a sharp reaction from civil society groups and media organizations in Pakistan. Many people described it as a setback to the women’s right movement in the country, though it was an awfully pessimistic assessment of the situation.

Pakistan women in Islamabad gather to promote good governance and women's rights. Mukhtaran Mai has become the face of Pakistan's women's rights movement, but the verdict has left some wondering what progress has been made. Photo: Pakistan's Express Tribune Photo/Muhammad Javaid

Mai had fallen victim to the tribal justice system when her 12-year-old brother was accused of having an illicit relationship with a girl from an influential clan in a small village community. The boy never got a fair trial, yet it was his sister who was ultimately subjected to retributive justice by an informal village council that asked a group of men to sexually abuse her.

Mai’s reaction to such humiliation surprised everyone in her community. Rather than staying silent, she decided to fight back in one of the world’s most conservative social milieus. Her case was taken up by local media outlets and civil society organizations. It was also covered by leading international journalists who were instrumental in bringing global attention to one of the most heinous episodes of violence against women in Pakistan.

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India was gripped by election fever this spring as voting kicked off in the states of Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and West Bengal. After months of suspense and conjecture, the results are finally in. In West Bengal, Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee defeated 34 years of Communist rule to become the first ever female chief minister in the state.

Despite impressive gains in the political arena, women in India continue to face numerous challenges and threats that prevent them from claiming their rights and seizing opportunities. Photo by Karl Grobl.

Meanwhile, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, former actress and politician Jayalalitha swept the polls to defeat the incumbent DMK government. Although political analysts and watchers had predicted these results, the rise of long-time women leaders to prominent positions in government has drawn international attention and generated considerable debate in India.

Banerjee and Jayalalitha are not anomalies, but part of a growing number of women leaders in the upper ranks of Indian politics. In New Delhi, Chief Minister Sheila Dixit has won three successive terms in government on an agenda of growth and development. Meanwhile, in poverty stricken Uttar Pradesh, Dalit leader and icon Mayawati is a political force to be reckoned with, and also a source of inspiration to Dalits (so-called “untouchables”) across the country. There are also prominent women leaders at the national level. Pratibha Patil currently serves as India’s first female president, while in Parliament, the speaker of the Lok Sabha (lower house), Meira Kumar, and leader of the opposition, Sushma Swaraj, are also women. Last but not least, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi has transformed the political fortunes of the Congress party and was recently listed by Forbes magazine as the ninth most powerful leader in the world.

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