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In Nepal's parliament women still occupy the fringe

What do Nepal's former deputy prime minister Shailaja Acharya, and former ministers Sahana Pradhan and Lila Koirala, have in common?

All three top leaders of major political parties were defeated in the May general elections in this Himalayan kingdom.

Acharya, Nepal's first woman deputy prime minister who also held the important water resources portfolio briefly early last year, was defeated for the first time in her constituency in Morang district on the Nepal-India border.

Pradhan, the chairperson of the opposition Communist Party of Nepal-(Marxist-Leninist, was routed in her home constituency in Kathmandu. Koirala too was voted out for the first time from Janakpur, a border town.

Surprising as their defeats were, Nepal's largely illiterate voters elected a record number of women to the 205- member house of representatives, the policy-making lower house of Nepal's parliament.

According to the Election Commission, 12 members of parliament are women. Both the previous parliaments, after the restoration of democracy in Nepal in 1990, had only seven women lawmakers.

Says Renu Yadav, a first-time law-maker who won from a constituency in Saptari district, ''I am thrilled to be in parliament. But I am also aware that many women do not have the opportunity I had. My primary aim would be to lobby the government for more affirmative action programmes aimed at uplifting poor womenfolk.''

However, lost in this post-poll euphoria is the about-face by political parties who had all promised more number of women contestants in the May polls.

While the major political parties had set aside the constitutionally mandated five per cent of house seats for women candidates, none fulfilled their pre-poll promise of doubling that figure.

The ruling centrist Nepali Congress Party, which emerged victorious in the polls winning a majority, allocated only 6.7 per cent of the seats for women candidates -- far less than the 10 per cent it had promised with much fanfare.

Neither did the main opposition Communist Party of Nepal-United-Marxist-Leninist stick to its word. Women were allocated less than seven per cent of the seats while its rival, Communist Party of Nepal-Marxist-Leninist, which had promised 25 per cent of the seats for women candidates, made the 10 per cent mark.

The pro-palace rightist National Democratic Party and the Terai-based Nepal Sadbhavana Party chose to ignore the call by women's groups to increase representation to women in parliament.

As a result 5.8 per cent of the seats in the new parliament are held by women -- a modest improvement over the past representation of 3.4 per cent -- and not a single woman has made it to the 16-member cabinet of Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai.

Activists, however, rue the electoral defeat of Acharya, Pradhan and Koirala who were active in raising various women's causes in the male-dominated parliament.

Among the important issues raised by Nepal's women's groups are demands for equal rights for women to parental property and the end to gender discrimination in the anti-abortion law that slaps 20-year prison terms on women who terminate a pregnancy but lets their male partners go free.

During her term as the minister for women and social affairs in 1997, Koirala had drafted a new bill giving daughters the right to parental property, but the bill was heavily watered down by the ministry of law, justice and parliamentary affairs before it was tabled in parliament.

Last month the bill, the civil code amendment bill as it was called, lapsed. It had been languishing in various parliamentary committees for two years awaiting final approval, and lapsed for lack of action by parliament.

Women's activists say they now have to start all over again. It's likely to be an 'uphill' task.

UNI

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