January 3, 2008
Contact: pr@piwdw.org
The Press Institute for Women in the Developing World
527 23rd Ave. Ste. #210
Oakland, CA 94606

Press Institute Founder wins Bravery in Journalism Award; Named one of the 21 Leaders of the 21st Century

The international news service Women's eNews announced yesterday that The Press Institute for Women in the Developing World's founder, Cristi Hegranes, has been named one of the 21 Leaders of the 21st Century for 2008. In addition to her inclusion on this prestigious list, Hegranes was also awarded the annual Ida B. Wells prize for Bravery in Journalism.

Prior to founding The Press Institute in March of 2006, Hegranes, 27, was a foreign correspondent and feature writer covering women's issues, AIDS and immigration for some of the world's premier magazines and weekly newspapers. But in working for mainstream media Hegranes says her journalistic dreams were not being fulfilled. "I had the job I thought I always wanted," she says. "But I could never escape the knowledge that news, especially news coming in from abroad, was so often skewed, filtered, and in many ways did a disservice to both local communities and international readerships."

Hegranes says she dreamed of one day becoming the publisher of a large newspaper chain and "changing the standards and ethics of main stream reporting." But a fierce passion for the written word and the principles of journalism overtook Hegranes and her long-term career plan. "After I came back from working as a foreign correspondent in Nepal I realized how limiting the current model of foreign correspondence could be. I wanted to create a new model where the people with the greatest linguistic, political, social, and historical knowledge and access were the ones reporting the news from their communities to an international audience."

So Hegranes set to work creating a model where news was reported from the inside out. Today her dream takes the form of The Press Institute for Women in the Developing World, the organization she founded to train women in developing countries to be strong, ethical, investigative local reporters covering six specific topics - AIDS, poverty, reproductive health, violence against women, political oppression and community development. Using an original curriculum written and designed by Hegranes, The Institute trains women in the principles and practice of journalism. "There is a great emphasis on eliminating bias and understanding objectivity," says Bridget Huber, a former program director of The Institute's inaugural Global Training Site in Chiapas, Mexico. After six-months of extensive coaching and training the reporters are hired as Senior Correspondents by The Press Institute's international newswire. Content produced by the reporters is published on the newswire and sold and disseminated to local and mainstream news outlets around the globe in seven different languages.

On her decision to train only women, Hegranes says a "woman-centered program" allows for the greatest source access on under-reported issues and helps to empower and educate whole communities.

The Press Institute is a 501(c)3 international nonprofit organization. The Institute is funded by foundations and individuals worldwide, but Hegranes and her 12 member board of directors have refused corporate and government dollars. Hegranes says she intends to stay true to her initial goal of creating a 100 percent independent news service.

Recently, Hegranes told Women's eNews, "This is an idea whose time has come. Globally, people are hungry for information that comes with no strings attached."

Press Institute reporters have already earned international recognition for their work, which is well read worldwide. On average the news wire receives 40,000 hits per month from approximately 50 countries. Hegranes says she is proud of the work her reporters have produced - coverage has ranged from women trafficking and civil war to land use issues and health care fraud. "People ask me all the time if I still do my own reporting. I don't have time these days, but I always say journalism is about the greater good. And in the last 18 months the 10 reporters who have been trained by The Institute have covered more stories and covered them better than I ever could have," Hegranes exclaimed.

In addition to the phenomenal, ethical journalism that its reporters have produced, Hegranes says 'the best part' of The Press Institute is to see the way that journalism and a greater access to information have empowered and uplifted the new reporters and the communities they cover. "The unemployed, the street workers, the domestic laborers that we hire, they live in societies where they are utterly disrespected," Hegranes says. "I am blown away every day to see these women choose journalism and use it to elevate themselves."

All media inquires and interview requests should be directed to pr@piwdw.org, or directly to Cristi Hegranes, 415-516-3012, Cristi@piwdw.org. Information about the Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism and the 21 Leaders of the 21st Century can be found at www.womensenews.org.

Pariyar is a good tailor with many clients, yet she is never paid for her work. Pariyar is a part of an age-old tradition here called Baalighar -- a method of servitude which forces people from Pariyar's caste, the so-called untouchables, to labor as tailors and seamstresses in exchange for only small containers of grain, in lieu of actual wages. And on a day like today, when Pariyar chooses to sew at home, she will only earn half her allotment of grain.

Sukundhara Pariyar has been following baalighar tradition for the last 14 years. Everyday, she wakes up with the first rays of sunlight and by 8 a.m., she arrives at her bista's houses. She works for several bistas, whenever they call her for work. Everyday when Pariyar receives the call from any of her bistas, she carries her sewing machine, which weighs 25 kilograms, on her back and heads to their homes. She works for up to ten hours each day, until all of the stitching, mending, and sewing is finished. "The whole day I have to sew clothes for people for Baalighar but we don't get proper fruit of our labor," Pariyar said.

Pariyar is from a Dalit community, the "untouchables" in the Nepali caste system. The Dalits in Nepal belong to three separate low caste groups -- the Kami, the Sarki, and the Damai. Traditionally each group is linked to a specific occupation. The baalighar tradition is mainly followed by the people of Pariyar, a group of people within the Dalit community who work only as tailors. Dalits in Nepal have followed the baalighar system since 13th century when King Jayasthiti Malla, a king from Malla dynasty, formalized the caste system.

In this system, people from Pariyar caste, and hence with the same last name, commonly known as baalighare, sew the clothes for "upper caste" people, popularly called bista. The bista pay their baalighare for their work with one kilogram of grain, like rice, corn or wheat, for a full day of work -- often as long as ten hours.

Despite the modernization and political advancements that have taken place in Nepal in recent years, the baalighar tradition is still common in many areas of the country, including Kathmandu. However, there is no data available about the number of people still working as baalighare here. The baalighar system violates Nepali labor law and the new interim constitution, yet no political commitments have been made by the new government here to put an end to this ancient system of servitude.

Nepalese Labor law calls for a 48-hour work week, with one day off per week, and limits overtime to 20 hours per week. The government has also fixed a minimum wage of 100 rupees per day. The baalighar system violates nearly every provision of Nepali labor laws and offers no protection or specialty clause for baalighare workers. Baalighare work, on average, for about 10 hours a day, for which they receive one kilogram of rice or other grains. While the grain feeds their families, baalighare workers are forced to sell that grain in the markets in order to earn cash for other living expenses. The market price for one kilogram of rice is about 35 rupees, about $ 0.45 USD, which is far less than the wage fixed by the local labor laws. As a general rule, bistas, those who employ the baalighare, do not provide shelter or other facilities to the baalighare workers.

Nepal's Interim constitution, which was drafted following the restoration of democracy in April 2006, guarantees the right to equality and employment to all citizens. Similarly the constitution mandates that the government work for the promotion of the interests of marginalized communities, including Dalits. Yet, the interim constitution and all political parties have yet to address the baalighar tradition and the threat it poses to the modernization of the country.

Ramprit Paswan, Nepal Communist Party (UML), a leader and member of the interim parliament here says the new government leaders have declared Nepal a discrimination free state. He says members of parliament are committed to the protection and promotion of Dalits in Nepal. "However [the] interim parliament has not made any specific laws or policies to address the problem of Baalighare," Passwan said.

Although "untouchability" was abolished by the New National Code of Nepal in 1963 and was made punishable by the interim constitution in 2007, the principle and practice continue and are very common. Experts and activists say the people deemed "untouchable" here live in a swamp of illiteracy, exploitation, marginalization, poverty and, above all, caste discrimination. Dalit rights activist and attorney Ratna Bahadur Bagchand says, "Under the caste system, Dalits suffer from deprivation of economic opportunities, and general neglect by the state and society."

According to the National census held in 2001, the Dalit population constitutes 13 percent of the total population. While the average annual income of the upper castes, Brahmins and Chettris, is $240 USD, the average annual income of a Dalit is $39 USD. The census also showed that Dalits hold only one percent of total farming land in Nepal. More than 70 percent of Dalit children suffer from malnutrition, where as national malnutrition rate of 48 percent.

Dalit rights activists says poverty and a lack of other means of livelihood force the Dalits to continue their traditional occupations, like baalighar, where they do not get justifiable wages for their labor. Attorney Bagchand says, "Lack of modern technology skills, education and financial resources prevent Dalits from [being] employed in new industries or trade in the market where they can get fair wages." Pariyar agrees. She says she has no option but to continue to work within the baalighar tradition. "No matter how fast we stitch the clothes, it is impossible to stitch more than four, five cloths [per day]. We hardly get 1 kilogram of rice which is sufficient to feed my family only for two days," she said. Pariyar says during festivals and marriages, her workload drastically increases so she takes her two daughters, 18 and 23, to work with her. But her daughters do not get paid separately and at the end of the day, she takes home the same 1 kilogram of grain. "I know my daughter's labor is wasted but I have no choice," she said. Pariyar's daughters also work as baalighare themselves, as they too have been unable to find other jobs outside the tradition.

In slower times when Pariyar only has one or two orders from her bista, she says she looks for work as a field hand on a local farm. "The income that I generate by sewing clothes is barely enough to sustain my family for six months. So when I don't have orders I work as a field hands on a farm." Pariyar earns cash wages working on a farm but she says that one has to be lucky to get a job as a farm hand, as they are not easily available.

Pariyar is not the only woman in Kirtipur who has accepted the baalighar system. Many of her friends and neighbors also labor for grain because they have been unable to find other work that pays in actual wages. Bimala Pariyar of Nankhel village at Bhaktapur, a neighboring of Kathmandu district, says, "I don't have farm and to start a business I do not have money. So I have accepted baalighar."

Sailee Pariyar, 61, a resident of Dhapakhel at Lalitpur, also follows the tradition. She says the responsibility of her family fell on her shoulders after her husband died of heart attack seven years ago. "Since I could not find other way of income, I accepted baalighar tradition for the livelihood of my family," she said. But within the tradition, she says, it is still extremely difficult to mange for her family.

Rights activists say that poverty and fear of losing what employment they do have, has rendered Dalit women unable to raise their voices about the labor and equality violations they face. Rita Acharya, another woman working within the baalighar tradition in Kathmandu says, "It is true that we do not get paid well, but if I complain I might even loose this work."

But what about the bistas? In a rapidly changing political climate where injustice of minority groups have been constantly highlighted in recent months, the bista who employ baalighare still say they are not doing injustice to their workers.

Januka Bista, 60,of Kirtipur, employs baalighares to sew her clothes. "Giving grains is the rule of baalighar tradition. We have been giving grains since the time of our forefathers. So we do not give money. I don't feel there is anything wrong in it," she said.

Members of the Dalit community and rights activists are hopeful that in the coming months and years the new government here will make good on their word to protect the Dalit community and criminalize the baalighar system according to the new labor laws. Bishnu Prasad Lamsal, joint-secretary of the Ministry of Women Children and Social Welfare, says he is hopeful that these traditions will end in the process of social change. "Many traditional ills of our Nepali society are still followed. Though these cannot be eliminated at one time, they will slowly end in the process of social change."

On July 19, a meeting between peasant farmers of the world took place in Cideci-Universidad de La Tierra in San Cristóbal De Las Casas, Chiapas. Representatives from various peasant movements as well as members of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), which were represented by various Zapatista commanders including the famous subcomandante Marcos, participated in a round table discussion to share their struggles as members of peasant farmer organizations.

This meeting introduced the Second Meeting of the Zapatista people with the People of the World, which is taking place in the Zapatista caracoles (heads of autonomous municipalities) of Oventik, Morelia and La Realidad, from July 20 - 28th. The first Meeting of this kind took place in Oventik in December of last year. The goal of these meetings according to an EZLN June communiqué is "[for the people of Mexico and the world] to get to know, directly from the words of the Support Bases of the EZLN, the process of autonomy construction in the indigenous Zapatista communities of Chiapas."

In 1994, an organized group of indigenous peoples of Chiapas, called the EZLN, who until then had been training in the secrecy of the Lacandon Jungle, rose up in arms and occupied seven Chiapan cities demanding the resignation of then current president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, fair elections, and declaring war on the Mexican army. After 12 days of armed confrontations, the war was called to a halt and the Zapatistas converted, paradoxically, in the first pacifist army of the world. Since then, they have fought peacefully for the recognition of indigenous people and their rights in the Mexican legislation. In 2006 they sent subcomandante Marcos as emissary, with the name of Delegate Zero, on a national tour alternative to the 2006 presidential campaign, known as "The Other Campaign", whose mission was to listen to realities of struggles and resistance movements across Mexico with the goal of building a network between all people "from the bottom and to the left."

Representatives from the Sem Terra movement in Brazil (MST), the Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements, the Korean Peasant League, the National Family Farm Coalition and members of the Comisión Sexta (Sixth Comission) of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN by its Spanish initials), including commanding officer David, Lieutenant Colonel Moisés, and Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos arrived at 6 p.m. to begin this meeting in the context of the events that are taking place this week.

Thursday's meeting convened and members from the international organizations were quick to delve into the evening's theme - multinational corporations invading the agriculture markets around the world.

The round table began with Yudhvir Singh of the Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movement. Singh told the crowded room that as many as 65 percent of Indians rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. Changing modes of ownership and corporatization of agriculture on the subcontinent has lead to more than 150,000 farmers allegedly commiting suicide in the last 15 years.

In India, much like Chiapas, peasant rebellions have organized across the country. Singh left the crowd with a strong anti-corporate message. "Even when there is an interest to reform [current legislation], the first step is managing multinationals to pay a fair price for the land without the government as a mediator", he said.

Dong Uk Min, international relations coordinator of the Peasants League of Korea, an organization with 50,000 affiliate families, after speaking about the challenges faced by peasant farmers in his country since 1994, after Korea signed on to the World Trade Organization, said "we will be together with Mexican peasants in this struggle."

The only woman at the table, Soraia Soriano of the MST of Brazil sent a special greeting to the women at the meeting and said that in this movement two million affiliate people participate. Soriano spoke troubled as she described the environmental concerns related to the corporitization of agriculture in Brazil. In recent years, Soriano said, land purchased by multinational corporations in Brazil for the production of sugar cane ethanol has accelerated. She projected that by 2013, there will be 70 new factories producing ethanol, the production of sugar cane will grow but crops will also be displaced, which will cause a major deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. Soriano highlighted the participation of women when, in 2006, 2,000 activists destroyed 10 million eucalyptus seedlings destined to paper production. "We have to be very optimistic to find new ways and always think of new strategies," said Soriano.

Leaders of the EZLN spoke at the close of the meeting. Commanding officer David told the audience that the Zapatista would never cease to struggle for Mother Earth, "that she belongs to those who work it, [and that] the indigenous people have never damaged her like the neoliberal economy is doing now".

Subcomandante Marcos, EZLN spokesman, talking about today's economic reality said, "some few are owners of everything and many are owners of nothing and this has to change, it must be turned upside down, subverted, turned around." He added, "all current anticapitalist efforts are respectable and important."

With the slogans "Freedom and Justice to Atenco," "Freedom and Justice to Oaxaca," the round table was called to a close.

This conference was followed by a series of meetings that are taking place in the Zapatista caracoles of Oventik, in the highlands of Chiapas, Morelia, in the Ocosingo valley, and La Realidad, the stronghold of the Zapatista army in the Lacandon Jungle. Throughout the week, issues such as healthcare, education, autonomy and women's struggles will be discussed.

SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS -- Broken windows. Makeshift walls. Sewer rats play among boxes of nutritional supplements for malnourished babies and nursing mothers.

This is the clinic at the Municipal Recreational Center (CEDEM) in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, where more than 33,000 of the city's poorest residents obtain medical services each year.

The bulk of the CEDEM clinic's patients participate in Oportunidades, a government program with the stated mission of "promoting human development among the population living in extreme poverty." The program offers a range of services to marginalized families including scholarships and cash to defray food and electricity costs. Oportunidades participants also receive free health services including prenatal care, nutritional assessment, and the prevention and detection of cervical cancer.

These health services are obligatory for families in the program. If they miss scheduled doctor's appointments, their monetary aid is docked or eliminated.

But many of the families who receive help from Oportunidades complain that they receive substandard treatment at the CEDEM clinic, and that the clinic's offices and examining rooms are dirty and unhygienic. Complaints about pap smears are particularly common. Women complain that the tests, essential in the detection of cervical cancer, provoke pain and bleeding, and many say they never see their test results.

In light of the clinic's conditions, these families find themselves in a tough situation. If they quit going to their appointments at the CEDEM clinic, they will lose much-needed monetary support. But some say the care that they receive there causes more harm than good.

Last year, Maria Estela Constantino Zuñiga, 44, had a pap smear at the CEDEM clinic that she said provoked discomfort and bleeding for more than two weeks after her appointment. "I was in pain. My uterus was very sore. I was like this for at least 15 days," she said. Clinic staff, she said, gave her no explanation for the pain and never gave her the test results.

In April, Zuñiga went back to the CEDEM clinic for another pap smear. This time, there was no pain or bleeding, but she said test was performed on a bed with no stirrups. Zuñiga is a large woman and when the nurse asked her to hold her legs up so she could give her the test, she could not. "How do you expect me to hold the position if there are no foot supports? You'll have to lend me your shoulders because I can't do it alone," she recalled saying to the nurse who treated her.

Another CEDEM Clinic patient, Maria Vasquez Martínez, 23, also believes that staff performs pap smears badly. Vasquez Martínez went to her scheduled test in the autumn of 2006. She said she felt pain as the nurse removied the instruments from her body. Vasquez Martínez left the clinic bleeding with a sharp pain in her lower abdomen.

Vasquez Martínez also complained about the clinic's facilities. "The health center is always dirty. There's no one who cleans it. There are rats. How is it possible that doctors allow their workspace to be so dirty?" said Vasquez Martínez.

Though her next pap smear is months away, Vasquez Martínez is already worrying, "My next pap smear is in October, and I'm scared because of what happened to me the last time," she said.

But pap smears shouldn't be scary or painful, said Dr. Belinda Calvillo, a gynecologist at the Marie Stopes Clinic in San Cristóbal, one of three reproductive health centers in the state operated by the British non-profit organization Marie Stopes International.

Calvillo said that she regularly sees women who decide to go to Marie Stopes for their pap smears because they don't trust the CEDEM clinic. But pap smears can cost up to 300 pesos (about $30 USD) in private clinics, so this option falls out of reach of many women who are guaranteed free health care at the CEDEM clinic.

Still, about 15 percent of the pap smears performed at the Marie Stopes clinic are for women who come from the CEDEM clinic. So far this year, about 90 women have come from CEDEM," said Calvillo.

Some Oportunidades patients at the CEDEM clinic get permission to have their pap smears done in private clinics with the condition that they turn their results in to CEDEM.

But CEDEM's clinic director, Dr. Georgina Domínguez Gordillo, is against this practice. She says women who have pap smears done elsewhere should lose their benefits and make room in the program for women who can't afford health care in private clinics.

"We offer women a quality service. That's why we don't allow them to go to private doctors," she said and added that her clinic, which is publicly funded, is able to link needy patients with public hospitals that can provide more extensive medical care than that offered by the CEDEM clinic, in cases of serious health problems.

But Ana Maria Jiménez Martínez, a volunteer community liaison at the CEDEM clinic said that despite Domínguez Gordillo's claims about the quality health care offered in the clinic, patients regularly complain to her about their pap smears, "It's always different women," she said. She said that complaints about the clinic's hygiene and the lack of equipment and privacy in examining rooms are also common.

Calvillo of Marie Stopes confirms that many of the women she sees complain about severe pain during and after pap smears at the CEDEM clinic, while others say they never see their test results and are left wondering if they are healthy or if they have a problem that needs attention.

Calvillo says women should be able to choose where they seek health care. "This violates women's rights. This decision should be left up to them. Women's health should not be conditional, and health services shouldn't be used to manipulate the population," said Calvillo.

But despite the clinic director's claim that it is against program regulations Oportunidades to seek care elsewhere, officials disagree. "Technically speaking, getting a pap smear [in an Oportunidades-affiliated public clinic] isn't obligatory, but in practice it is," said Antonio Alcoser, the Chief of Citizen Attention in the Chiapas Oportunidades office. He went on to say that if cases exist in which doctors obligate women to realize their pap smears in public clinics, these are irregularities that should be denounced before the program leadership.

According to Oportunidades' rules, patients are allowed to have pap smears at private clinics as long as they turn their results into their doctors at Opoturnidades-affiliated public clinics, said Alcoser. It isn't important where women go for pap smears, said Alcoser, "What's important is that they do it."

But Domínguez Gordillo of the CEDEM clinic stands by her decision, and said that Oportunidades' administrators don't always understand the realities faced by the doctors and nurses of the program. "There are differences between the administration and those of us who work on the ground. We don't always agree," she said.

Domínguez Gordillo denied that Oportunidades violates women's right to choose where they receive medical attention, saying that the program is voluntary. "Both sides have a responsibility, the doctors and the program participants. The doctors [are responsible for] giving medical attention, and the patients have the responsibility to come to their appointments." She said that part of the problem is that Oportunidades participants didn't take the time to inform themselves about their responsibilities they assumed upon enrolling in the program, "The women didn't read the rules. They just signed up because they knew that they were going to get money," she said.

When asked to respond to patients' complaints about pap smears, Domínguez Gordillo said she doesn't believe there is any problem with the tests that her staff administers. She said that she has not received any complaints from patients about pap smears.

The root of the problem, said Domínguez Gordillo, is poor communication between clinic staff and patients. A language barrier exists between some patients who speak only indigenous dialects and staff who speak only Spanish. Other times, doctors don't thoroughly explain procedures to their patients.

When asked about the reports of post-pap smear pain and bleeding amongst CEDEM clinic patients, Domínguez Gordillo said these women probably had pre-existing conditions such as infections or inflammation that were aggravated by the test but not caused by it. She cited poor communication once again, saying that doctors don't explain these situations to patients, so women with these problems end up blaming the CEDEM clinic staff and wrongly concluding that the tests were administered incorrectly.

Domínguez Gordillo agreed that the clinic is dirty and poorly equipped, but said there are no resources to resolve these problems. Until seven months ago, the clinic had no running water, she said. And until recently, there was no cleaning staff, but now another local clinic lends them their janitors two or three times a week. "[These problems] make it hard for us to provide quality services," she said.

Money is so tight, she says, that clinic staff are forced to pay for things like gasoline for emergency house calls, telephone calls, and laundry from their own pockets. Pointing to a pile of dirty laundry she said, "Look at the dirty clothes here. I have to pay 30 pesos (about $3 USD) out of my own pocket so that this laundry will be washed."

For now, patients like Vasquez Martínez have little choice but to continue going to their appointments at the CEDEM clinic. "I have to go. If not, they mark it as a missed appointment, and they can take away the money they give us," she said.

KATHMANDU, NEPAL -- Patali Thapa Magar, 28, is roasting corn on a metal pan while sitting under a Peepal tree at a crossroads in Badegaun, a village about 15 kilometers away from Kathmandu. She holds a load of corncobs in a sack on her back. Every few minutes, she fans the amber in the metal pan to make fire. She has a dark complexion, eyes with dark circle underneath. Her face looks fatigued and pale. Her hair is full of the dust and dirt that clouds the road every time a vehicle passes. Sweat runs from her neck as she waits for a customer to buy her roasted corn.

Today is Thapa Magar's first day back at work selling corn. For the last four days, she has been a patient at the Patan Hospital in Lalitpur, a district adjoined to Kathmandu.

She checked into the hospital after she experienced continuous vaginal bleeding for days. After doctors in the hospital told her that her uterus was infected, she admitted trying to induce an abortion herself. She says she took an herbal pill, without informing anyone, including her husband. Magar's self-induced abortion left her with a prolapsed uterus, a disorder that causes the uterus to descend down the vaginal canal.

According to a report from a local NGO, Centre of Research on Environment, Population and Health Activities, CREPHA, 50 percent of women in Nepal who come to hospitals with reproductive problems are experiencing side effects from unsafe, clandestine, or self-induced abortions. Of every 100 pregnancies, 60 percent are unwanted here. Among these unwanted pregnancies, 37 percent opt for abortion and only 17 percent of those cases have access to safe abortion. Among those who resort to unsafe abortion, 20 to 40 percent die and most of them suffer from reproductive health complications.

Abortion was legalized in Nepal in 2002. The amendment of the civil law allows abortion up to 12 weeks with a woman's consent, up to 18 weeks if the pregnancy is due to rape or incest, and anytime if the physical or mental health of the woman is at risk, or the fetus is deformed. Sex-selective abortion remains a crime, punishable with six months to three years in prison.

According to CREPHA, since abortion was legalized approximately 160,000 women have had legal abortions in government approved facilities. But various studies show many more women have not been able to access the safe abortion services. The survey report of United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, ranks Nepal as the country worst affected by unsafe abortions, with 539 maternal deaths in every 100,000 births. Fifty percent of all maternal deaths here are the result of unsafe abortion. According to CREPHA, the most common methods of clandestine abortions are intake of oral herbal preparations, overdose of modern oral medicines, insertion of foreign objects into the vagina, and vaginal ointments.

Magar comes from a farming family in Tharuppa a village near Sindhupalchowk, about 100 kilometers away from Kathmandu. She was married at age 15 to a local farmer, Sambhar Thapa Magar, in 1994. She bore her first daughter within a year of the marriage. She was a mother of five by the time she was 25 years old.

She says her family's income from the farm was not enough to sustain the growing family. "Though it was insufficient, we were somehow surviving with what we had," she said. But the family's problems were increasing as the ongoing armed conflict between Maoists and government intensified in their village. When they found it too dangerous to stay in their village, they, like hundreds of thousands of other, fled Kathmandu in 2005.

Life in Kathmandu was not easy for the family. Magar recalls spending her days and nights in the city streets. She says, "We came here with 4000 rupees (about $57 USD) and it was obviously not enough to manage food and shelter to the family of eight." During that time she says her family had no alternative but to starve. Her husband finally found a job as a daily wage potter and then they rented a room in the Badegaun neighborhood. The whole family, including her mother-in-law, share a one room flat.

But still, her husband's earnings alone were not enough to feed eight people. So to support the family, she started to sell roasted corn on the street. The family's combined income is still not enough to manage two meals a day. She says, "Some days I earn about 200 rupees (about $3 USD) while there are days when I don’t make any money.”

So when Magar realized she was pregnant again, she says she knew she could not provide an adequate life for a sixth child. She says she saw no option other than an abortion. She says, "I thought when I cannot give proper life to the child, what's the use of giving birth to it. And so I aborted."

But despite the availability of legal abortion at Maternity Hospital in Kathmandu, Magar could not afford the legal procedure. Instead she bought a black pill from a sudeni, a person who pretends to have knowledge about reproductive problems. She paid 100 rupees, about $1.50 USD. She says she took the pill but nothing happened. So she took another one and after few hours she experienced an excess pain and stream of blood started to flow. She says, "I don’t know what exactly the medicine was but it was very bitter and I fainted few hours after I took it."

Magar comes from a village where few women are literate and do not have access to information about family planning and birth control. She has never used contraceptives. She did not know she could have abortion in hospitals. She says she thought hospitals only performed critical operations and charge hefty amounts. "I thought why to waste time and money if I can do the same thing in 100 rupees," she says. The price of legal abortion here, according to government mandate, is 1,000 rupees, about $14 USD, but studies show the hospital expenses can range from 800 to 2000 rupees, up to $28 USD.

Magar's mother-in-law, found her in grave condition a few hours after she took the second pill. She took Magar to Patan Hospital. According to Durga Shrestha, a nurse on duty at the time, Magar was unconscious when she was brought to the hospital. She had fever of 102 degrees and had lost a lot of blood. She received a saline IV, and a blood transfusion. Within six hours, Shrestha says she regained consciousness.

Magar said, the doctors then informed her that as a result of the drugs she took to abort, she would now suffer from uterine prolpase. Doctors advised her undergo an operation to restore her uterus, which costs about 10,000 rupees, about$143 USD. Magar told doctors she couldn't afford the procedure, so she now uses a removable ring to prevent her uterus from descending. Regretting her decision to opt for unsafe abortion, she says, "I would not have had to suffer if I had aborted in the hospital."

"When women are getting medicines for about 100 rupees, why would they spend 1000 rupees at hospitals?” asked Prabhakar Shrestha, a training and advocacy officer at CREPHA. He expressed his concern on the lack of awareness among women about the effects of these medicines.

Yamuna Bhattarai, a local attorney working at the Supreme Court of Nepal says, although the government has legalized abortion, it has not been able to make it accessible and create awareness among the people, both men and women, about its legalization. A survey jointly conducted by the government and CREPHA showed only 49 percent of people from urban areas and 20 percent of people from rural area are aware of safe, legal abortion options. Various reports show many women in Nepal still seek for clandestine and unsafe abortions due to ignorance, ingrained fears, shame and lack of availability of services.

Dr. Kasturi Malla, director of CAC, Comprehensive Abortion Care service, a government project for safe abortion at Prashuti Griha, Kathmandu, agrees. She says, among the 75 districts in Nepal, the government has provided safe abortion services in 70 districts. "Rural women are deprived from safe abortion services, as abortion facilities are centered in urban areas," she said.

Many people still resort to various clandestine procedures in fear of social reprisals. Hindu mythology forbids abortion. Shrestha, of CREPHA says, "A woman who aborts her own child is considered a sinner in our Hindu religion and the society looks down upon her." So many women here still use dangerous domestic methods to abort. "Even today women resort to risky domestic methods of abortion like intake of grinded glass pieces, putting heavy objects on the abdomen, and using cow dung in their vagina," says Meera Dhungana, an advocate at the Forum for Women, Law, and Development, FWLD, a local NGO.

In 2006, FWLD filed a writ with the Supreme Court asking for free abortion services for poor and uneducated women throughout the country. No ruling has been made.

Nirmala Pandey, 33, is HIV positive. She has been living a lonely life ever since her husband, who knowingly infected her, died of AIDS two years ago. She is now living with her in-laws in Maitidevi, a central area of Kathmandu, Nepal's capital city.

Pandey, is from Dhading, a neighboring district of Kathmandu. She was married to Nabaraj Pandey, 34, three years ago in Kathmandu. Like many women here, she says she dreamt of marrying a loving husband with good status in society. Before her marriage, the matchmaker told her that Nabaraj Pandey, her husband to be, was an employee of the Nepali Government. She was told her future husband earned 7,000 rupees, about $1,000 USD, per month. After learning this, she says she was happy and thought she was getting the man of her dreams. She said, "I always wanted to marry a man with a permanent government job. I was happy to find him."

After the marriage, Pandey's husband took her to Delhi, India on their honeymoon tour. But Pandey's new husband had a surprise in store for her.

When the couple reached Delhi, she learned that her husband was really a newspaper hawker in the streets of the city. She says, "They tricked me into the marriage and ruined my life."

In Delhi, Pandey says her belief in destiny forced her to try to make the best of the situation. Soon after they arrived in Delhi, she says her husband and sister-in-law forced her to take birth control pills. She was devastated and could not understand why her husband didn't want children. "I didn't realize then, but now I understand that Nabaraj knew he had HIV even before the marriage. He knowingly infected me with this monstrous disease."

Nepal is one of the world's poorest countries and its weak economy has been further weakened by a decade-long civil war. It is well documented that thousands of Nepalese people, mostly men, migrate to foreign lands for work. According a survey of UNAIDS, about 2 million people have left Nepal for foreign countries in the search of employment. More than half of those men, choose to cross the border to India.

New evidence from UNAIDS reveals that as many as ten percent of the migrants who work in India, return with HIV. Dr. Padam Bahadur Chand, director of the National AIDS and Sexual Disease Prevention Center of the Health Ministry in Nepal confirms that data. "Since they remain alienated from their family for long time, many of them indulge into unsafe sex and hence are infected with HIV," he said.

Many, among the infected are unaware that they have HIV and unknowingly they infect their wives and children after returning home Dr. Chand adds.

Dharma Lama, an employee working with a local NGO, the National Association of People Living with HIV AIDS in Nepal, has a similar view. He says many women in Nepal get infected with HIV through their husbands. He said, "Many husbands, with the fear that the wives would leave them when they know of their disease, hide it and subsequently the wives also get infected."

The first case of HIV in Nepal was documented in 1988, according to National AIDS and Sexual Disease Prevention Center. On the basis of the records collected from various government run blood testing centers, the numbers of people infected with HIV/AIDS, from 1988 to March 2007, was 9,043, among which 2,733 are women. Of the total numbers of infected women, government statistics show that 1,778 are housewives.

But international statistics vary greatly from the numbers published by the Nepali government. In 2006 a UNAIDS report revealed that as many as 75,000 people in Nepal are HIV infected, among them 16,000 are women. The report shows that every year 3,000 more people are affected with the virus. The statistics of UNAIDS are collected from all the health sectors and hospitals, government and private providers here. Jagadhish Dhakal, an assistant in the UNAIDS office says, "The government data is based on recorded cases of government hospitals only while our statistics is collected from all hospitals, health posts and HIV test centers."

But in Nepal, ignorance of HIV, how it is transmitted and its symptoms are still not widely known or understood. Most people do not visit health posts or hospitals until they become very sick. Pandey's husband did not visit medical centers, even after her developed a bad cough and respiratory problems. He simply took cough syrups bought from a local chemist shop.

Pandey says that two months into their marriage he began to have chest pains and a chronic cough. He tried some over the counter medicines, but his condition did not improve. When Pandey and her husband returned to Kathmandu to attend a festival, Dashain, the biggest Hindu festival here, her husband's health further deteriorated. She says while they were back in Nepal, he started to lose weight and had a fever. Pandey says a liquid started to flow from her husband’s ears and a mass of muscle grew at his armpit. Doctors operated on his arm to remove the extra muscle growth and during the treatment the doctors, at Bir Hospital in Kathmandu, revealed that he was HIV positive. The doctors then advised her to take her husband to Sukraraj Tropical and Transferable Disease Hospital in Teku, a neighborhood in Kathmandu. Pandey admits, "I did not know anything about HIV until then."

Though the doctors at Teku Hospital tested Pandey's blood for the disease, her test results were given to her husband's family, not directly to Pandey, a common practice here. "After my family members hid my report, I could not sleep at night. So I went back to the testing center for my blood test and the report showed that I was positive. That time I was very angry with my husband and I felt deserted," she said. Wiping her tears, she added, "I took my report and threw it in front of my husband while he was on the hospital bed. He reacted to it simply by saying, 'Oh, even you have the disease.'"

Pandey said, when her husband became bed ridden none of his family members took care of him. "Seventeen days prior to the death of my husband my in-laws did not let me go home. They managed lunch and dinner for me at a restaurant near the hospital and I slept at hospital during nights," she recalled.

Now that her husband is gone, Pandey still lives with her in-laws. She says that none of her family members will touch the glass she drinks from or the plate she uses to eat. No one will sit on the cushion she sits on. "They say that HIV is not transmitted [that way] but they don't follow in practice," said Pandey. "But I have nowhere else to go."

While many discriminate against those with HIV, many more do not even know what HIV is or how it is actually transmitted. Surendra Shah, coordinator of the ‘Hard to Reach’ program, an organization working for the HIV infected says, "Our programs have not been able to reach the remote places."

The root of the problem, he says, is ignorance of safe sex practices. Shah says that facilitators often demonstrate how to use condoms by doing demonstrating on their fingers. "We have found that many people then use condoms on their fingers during sex," Shah said. Despite the high number of housewives who have the disease in Nepal, Shah says the dominant assumption is that HIV is a prostitute's disease. "Many elderly people and women do not want to listen about the disease saying that it is irrelevant to them and is a domain of sex workers."

While the ignorance about the disease is a serious problem, many say that male-dominated social structure of Nepal is also to be blamed for the increased transmission rates among women. Chiring Lama, president of Sneha Samaj, an NGO established by people with AIDS to assist HIV infected women, says, women in Nepali society are often not allowed to take their own decisions in choosing a life partner. They are forced to marry whomever their parents choose and the parents only consider the social status of the man, not his past.

After facing much criticism for its handling of the AIDS epidemic in Nepal, the government here has instituted new programs to raise awareness about the disease. As of this year, the government has established 83 consulting and testing centers in as many as 50 districts, according to Usha Bhatta, public health inspector of National AIDS and Control of Transferable Disease Center. (There are 75 districts in Nepal.) In the centers, patients receive HIV tests and are informed about the dangers of the disease and the ways to protect oneself from it.

Dr. Chand says the government has not been able to do much in this sector so far. He says, "Most of the programs are run in the central level." Chand holds the view that government should educate migrant laborers and their families about the disease and prevention strategies.

Back at Maitidevi, Pandey says that after the death of her husband she felt alienated and for months she spent her days in tears. She thought her life was ruined and had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that she would not live long. Her aunt then introduced her to a volunteer working for HIV AIDS, Roshani Karmacharya, who gave her consultations about the disease and introduced her to other HIV infected women in Kathmandu. After meeting with her several times, Pandey says she decided to turn her life around.

Pandey is now employed at Teku Hospital. She helps to take care of other HIV infected women. Jaya Moktan, 31, an HIV infected woman who Pandey visits regularly says, "She is taking good care of me and gives me moral support. She is like an angel to me."

KATHMANDU, NEPAL -- Lokmaya Maharjan, 83, is small, fragile. Her hands and legs are thin. Her body is stooped and her face is wrinkled with age. She looks breakable. She says she incessantly suffers acute back pain, can't walk properly and is plagued by problems with her reproductive system.

In 1955, three weeks after the delivery of her fourth child, Maharjan says she had to prepare wine for an upcoming Hindu festival. She carried heavy vessels of wine and performed other hard labor tasks. "I felt my stomach fall down. When I checked, a ball of muscle had come out. I was really scared to see it and then I just pushed it inside with my fingers," Maharjan says. Unknowingly, she, like many Nepali women, suffered uterine prolapse. More than fifty years later, she still feels the effects of the condition.

Uterine prolapse is a condition that occurs when the tissues and ligaments that support the uterus weaken, causing the uterus to descend into the vaginal canal. Tissues are weakened during childbirth, difficult labor and delivery, and multiple births over a short period of time.

Over the years Maharjan has spent many sleepless nights because of the pain in her lower back and abdomen. She recounts, "It [my uterus] used to come out while I was carrying loads, working at the farm and sometimes while I just walked. I always pushed it back."

Maharjan is one of many Nepalese women suffering from uterine prolapse, which remains the leading cause of ill-health among women of reproductive and post-menopausal age in Nepal today. A survey jointly conducted by World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nation's Population Fund (UNFPA) in 2006, revealed that more than 600,000 women are suffering from uterine prolapse in Nepal. Though due to limited access to health care, ignorance of the condition, and poverty, the number is likely even higher. Nearly a third of the affected women, researchers say, need immediate surgery.

In Nepal, girls are married and give birth at an early age, which makes the prevalence of prolapse more widespread here. According to a survey conducted by UNICEF in 2004, about 40 percent of the women in Nepal get married before they reach 15 years of age while 60 percent get married between the age of 15 and 19. The reproductive rate of Nepali women is 4.1 per person and 21 percent women have children between the ages of 15 and 19.

Like many Nepalese women, Maharjan was married at age 17, in 1942. She delivered her first child in 1945 at the age of 20. Among the seven children that she bore, only five, three daughters and two sons survived. The other two died soon after their birth. She says she resumed her household work, like working on the farm, carrying heavy loads, fetching wood and grasses from the forest, and preparing wine, soon after the delivery of all her children.

Dr. Rajendra Gurung , a reproductive health officer with UNFPA, says, women with uterine prolapse often suffer from lower back pain, urinary disturbance, pain when defecating, incontinence, and foul-smelling discharge. "Uterine prolapse is curable, however, patients continue to suffer because of social stigma and shame," he says.

Despite the acute pain and discomfort Maharjan suffered, she remained ignorant of her condition for more than five decades. She says she learned the medical term and details of her illness only seven years ago when a volunteer from a community based reproductive health care and counseling center, PHECT, a local non governmental organization that works for to increase reproductive health care, visited her village to give counseling about uterine prolapse. She says a volunteer informed her of her condition and told her that her pain could be cured. Maharjan says she was thrilled to learn that there were treatment options available to her.

In 1999 she went to PHECT to explore treatment options, but her happiness was short lived. Doctors advised her to undergo an operation, which would cost 13,000 rupees, about $200 USD. She says she had no choice but to ignore the suggestion because she could not afford the operation. Instead she took her doctor's secondary recommendation, a ring pessery -- -a rubber-coated ring pushed up to the vagina to prevent the uterus from descending. This ring costs only about 10 rupees, about $0.70 USD. Since the ring needs to be changed every three months, experts say that women in Nepal do not often follow that reccomenation. "This might lead to infection and in extreme cases cause uterine cancer," Dr. Nafisha Malla, Reproductive Health Consultant at PHECT said.

While the ring prevents the uterus from descending, it does not prevent the pain that is associated with uterine prolapse. So a year ago Maharjan says the pain in her lower abdomen became so acute that she decided to take a loan of 13,000 rupees from her neighbor and admitted herself to the Nepal Medical College Kathmandu. But doctors refused to operate on her because of her age and fragile physical condition. Maharjan, disappointed, still uses the rubber ring. She says she regrets not taking the loan for the operation in 1999. "If I had operated on time, I would not have to live with this pain," she said.

Despite the physical discomfort, many prolapse sufferers do not seek help due to the social stigma and fear of being ostracized. According to an on-site survey conducted by WOREC, Women's Rehabilitation Center, a non-governmental organization working for women's rights in the eastern districts of Nepal, about 30 percent women suffering from the uterine prolapse do not share their problems with anyone.

Babita Basnet, a women's rights activist and president of Sancharika Samuha, a local NGO, says that the problem is aggravated because of the social structure and traditional beliefs of Nepal. "This is an unseen pain faced by many Nepali women," Basnet says. "Society views women with prolapsed uterus as inauspicious and impious and also because the illness is related to private parts, women do not talk about their problem." Basnet stressed that the government should provide proper facilities for treatment and should initiate new public awareness programs.

Arjun Bahadur Singh , a spokesperson for the Nepali government's Health Ministry, says that UNFPA and the government are working together to develop a three-fold national strategy to tackle uterine prolapse. It includes improved access to health care facilities for women of low-income, lower caste and women living in conflict areas. The program also aims increase mobile reproductive health camps. "We are very serious on this issue and we are trying to raise the awareness of people about uterine prolapse," says Singh.

KATHMANDU, NEPAL -- Shanti Rokka, 21, came to Kathmandu from Jhapa, an eastern district of Nepal, with the dream of earning enough money to provide a better life for her family. But Rokka quickly realized that Kathmandu had little to offer her. After struggling for more than a year to find a job and earn a decent wage, she finally found work at a cabin restaurant.

It is six in the evening. Restaurants in the alleys of Baneshwor, a central area of Kathmandu, are getting ready to welcome another colorful evening. In an alley just off the main road is Samman Restaurant and Bar, a cabin restaurant. In cabin restaurants, as they are called here, the restaurant hall is partitioned into tiny cubicles so that the waitresses can sit with customers and perform sexual favors for the customers in relative privacy.

Inside the restaurant, several waitresses stand before a counter applying make up, powder, lipstick and cream to their faces. Rokka wears less make-up than the others. She is sitting at a corner table with melancholy expression, her face cupped in her hands. Tonight she is dressed in a red kurta. She is wearing red lipstick, red nail polish and she has a red tika on her forehead.

As the restaurant opens and patrons begin to filter in the sounds of laughter and flirting emanate from the cabins where the curtains are already drawn. From the outside, the restaurant looks simple with dark doors and windows. But the interior is decorated with colorful bulbs, posters of Hollywood and Bollywood celebrities, and artificial flowers. Near the entrance door is a cash counter where a woman sits. She is busy receiving telephone calls and instructing the waitresses to lure the customers to order the most expensive drinks and large amounts of food.

It is now seven in the evening. The restaurant is crowded now and the waitresses near the counter look more desperate to attract clients. There are about 12 male customers in the restaurants tonight, each trying to coax the best-looking waitresses into their cabins. Among them, six patrons have already occupied three of the cabins, while the rest are sitting outside talking to a group of waitresses.

Rokka has been working in the restaurant for one year now. She begins her job everyday at nine in the morning. Throughout the day she serves customers with food and beverages, and at the orders of her employer, she also provides patrons with sexual gratification. Once she sits in the cabin partition with a patron her job is to encourage him to order drinks and food while allowing him to grope her. Rokka says customers grab, kiss, fondle, and molest her. She says many even ask for masturbation and oral sex. For these services the waitresses are tipped by customers, but there is no standard gratuity and no guarantee a customer will tip. "Some customers give one hundred [rupees] while some generous ones even give us 500 rupees ($7 USD)," Rokka said.

Rokka says she hates her work. But she is resigned to her "fate." She believes she has no choice but to suffer in silence. "I have become like a toy to the customers because I didn’t have money to buy food. Who would do such work willingly?" Rokka asked.

While the Nepali law does not allow cabin and dance restaurants to also operate sex businesses, officials say that many restaurants register under the Cottage Industry Act as a restaurant but after registration, begin offering sex to clients.

According to the Nepal Restaurant Entrepreneur’s Association (NREA), there are 700 cabin restaurants registered in Kathmandu, and officials estimate that there are likely several hundred more that are unregistered. The NREA says that cabin restaurants employ more than 30,000 women in Kathmandu.

The problem of sexual harassment in cabin restaurants is heightened here because there is no practical enforcement to curb the sex trade in Kathmandu. Prostitution is not legal in Nepal, but there aren't any specific laws prohibiting it either. Meera Dhungana of The Forum for Women, Law, and Developmnet (FWLD), a local nongovernmental organization, says, "Occasionally the police do raid some of the restaurants and arrest the customers, owners and waitresses for running sex businesses. However they are released after a few hours without any charge or fine."

According to a survey conducted in 2004 by SAATHI, a local NGO working to reduce violence against women, women work in cabin restaurants mostly due to illiteracy, poverty, domestic violence and unemployment. Sulkchhana Shrestha, the program coordinator of SAATHI says "Many girls who came to Kathmandu from rural villages have no education and job skills and a cabin restaurant is the only place that will employ them. So they are forced to go there."

According to SAATHI, 15 percent of the women who work in cabin restaurants are between the ages of 12 to 14 and 40 percent are between the ages of 15 to 22.

"The women working [in these restaurants] don't have anywhere else to go. They cannot report the sexual abuses they face due to lack of awareness and poverty," says Shrestha.

Rokka, like many of the girls who end up working in cabin restaurants, comes from a poor family in the eastern part of Nepal. She grew up in a small home, roofed with straw. Her parents and 17-year-old sister work as daily wage laborers there. When her mother became ill two years ago, she says it was difficult for the family to provide her with the medication and proper care that she needed. So she left her village and came to Kathmandu hoping to find work. After 45 days of searching for work Rokka says she found a job in a carpet factory. She earned 1,100 rupees, about $16 USD, per month which was not sufficient to sustain herself in the city and be able to send money back to her family. "My parents expected money from me [but] it was difficult even to manage two meals a day," she said.

After struggling to get by on her salary at the carpet factory for a year, she says she learned of cabin restaurants through a friend. "I had to do any kind of work to survive," Rokka said.

Rokka says she came to the restaurant to be a waitress but was quickly initiated into the world of prostitution. "Clients force us to drink alcohol. We have to do whatever they say or else they don’t pay the money. If they call us at night, we also have to go [home] with them," she says.

At the Samman Cabin Restaurant Rokka earns 5,000 rupees, about $72 USD, every month. Rokka says she is now able to send about 2,000 rupees, $29 USD, to her mother every month.

But even with her higher salary, Rokka still struggles to make ends meet. She says when she runs into financial trouble she often spends the night with her clients from the restaurant. Payment for sex outside the restaurant is not fixed, though Rokka says she normally charges between 1,000 to 2,500 rupees, $14 to $36 USD, per night. "I have to go wherever the client wants even without thinking what kind of person he is. There are some people who do not pay after they have sex with us and to add to it, they use abusive language in the morning to shoo us away," she said.

Rokka says she wants to quit her job in the restaurant. She wants to start a job where she will be respected. The social pressures of sex work in Nepal force Rokka to change her rented house every two to four months in fear of being ousted if a landlord finds out her profession.

Rokka's mother is still unaware of her daughter's profession and the source of the supplemental income she receives every month. Rokka says her mother pressures her to find an eligible man to marry, but Rokka says she is not interested in marriage. "What is the use of getting married? My husband will leave me as soon as he knows about my profession."

Experts in the human rights sector here say that despite the popularity of cabin restaurants in Kathmandu among men, the women who work in the restaurants have to bear the disgrace and discrimination silently. "We have nowhere to go to complain," Rokka confirmed.

While many people and organizations in Nepal are raising voices in opposition to cabin restaurants and the sex industry, many say the answer to the problem may not be as simple as just closing down the restaurants. Professor of the central sociology department at Tribhuvan University here in Kathmandu, Dr. Fanendra Paudel, says the country needs more regulations for the restaurants and an effort to inform the women working in the sex trade as to what their rights are. "The government should frame clear legal provisions to regulate and control this profession," he said.

Yagya Prasad Adhikary, the departmental head of the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, agrees. He considers the incidents of sexual abuse in the cabin restaurants as serious human rights abuses. "The government should immediately issue a law against sexual harassment in the workplace and punish people that commit such abuses," he said.

Two non-governmental organizations here, FWLD and Pro Public, have taken more concrete action to make such laws a reality. In 2002, they filed a writ at the Supreme Court petioning the court to frame a law that would reduce all kinds of sexual abuses against the women in the workplace. The Supreme Court issued a directive to make sexual harassment in the workplace illegal in 2004, but the law has not been formally drafted or enacted yet.

Mahendra Prasad Shrestha, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Women and Social Welfare, says, "The process of law making is in the final stage. Its draft is already submitted to the parliament and it will be issued within a month."

But even if the laws are enacted, enforcement will likely remain minimal. The owner of Samman Cabin Restaurant, who asked that her name not be used for fear of legal action, denies that the women who work for her are being sexually exploited. She says she does not force any of the waitresses to perform sexual behaviors. "We have not forced any of the workers. But their job demands them to make their customers happy," she said. She did admit that she knows customers often take the waitresses outside the restaurants to have sex for money. "Some [waitresses] behave well and some don’t," she said.

Meera Dhungana of FWLD says she is hopeful that the parliament will pass the long awaited sexual harassment bill to protect women like Rokka from being sexually exploited at their workplaces. The new law would obligate the employer to ensure the safety of their female employees from all kinds of sexual exploitation. Moreover, the bill has the provision to provide compensation to the victims. "After the implementation of the bill, the cabin restaurant owners cannot get away with exploiting their workers sexually," Dhungana said.

KATHMANDU, NEPAL --"I will never forget the day the doctor advised to me remove my uterus," Bikramiya Chaudhary, 33, said meekly from bed number 53 of the surgical ward of Bharatpur Cancer Hospital in Kathmandu. "This [cancer] was something I had never heard about. I felt like I was falling from a steep hill," she recalls of learning of her diagnosis.

Chaudhary suffers from uterine and cervical cancers, the most common cancers in Nepal. Despite their prominence here, many women in Nepal, especially in rural areas, remain ignorant of the disease. According to Dr. Rajendra Baral, director of Bharatpur Cancer Hospital, says the problem is rapidly increasing. "Due to the lack of public awareness, when cancer patients reach the hospital, they are often already in the last stage [of the cancer] and it is difficult for us to save them."

In her hospital bed, she wore a dirty blouse and her hands and feet were pale. These days, Chaudhary is so fragile that she cannot sit without a support. As she received a saline water transfusion in her left hand, she pressed her lower abdomen with the other hand. She muttered aiya aiya, as she twisted and turned from pain. Her husband, Kari Mahato, sat by her side looking helpless. Her mother, Laxmi Chaudhary, cried as she fanned her daughter with the end of her sari.

Chaudhary's mother brought her daughter to the hospital four days ago when she began to experience acute pain in her lower abdomen. She was diagnosed with fourth stage uterine cancer and was admitted here.

But this is not the first time Chaudhary has been admitted to the Bharatpur Cancer Hospital. She was operated on here three years ago. In 2004 she was diagnosed uterine cancer in the third stage and her uterus was removed. Chaudhary, who is from Chainpur, in a central district in Nepal, had to travel 25 kilometers to reach the hospital, one of only two available cancer treatment facilities in the country.

"The doctors said that a tumor has developed in my uterus and it needed to be removed," Chaudhary said of her first operation. Though even after her uterus was removed, she says she did not understand the reason for it. She says it was not made clear to her that she had cancer.

According to her doctor, Jitendra Pariyar, it is common for women not to understand their medical conditions. "We tell the patient's guardian about the disease," Pariyar says. Though Chaudhary is an adult woman, it is common within the medical system in Nepal for doctors not to offer female patients detailed information about their conditions. Dr. Pariyar says doctors tell patients like Chaudhary, women, about their conditions only when they inquire.

Bhola Shivakoti, the member secretary of Cancer Service Society of Bharatpur Cancer Hospital says women are often forced to wait for their husbands or son or in-laws to make treatment decisions. "When a woman and a domestic animal fall sick at the same time, the first priority is given to the treatment of animals," Shivakoti said.

While doctors and international aid organizations say that uterine and cervical cancers are both under-treated and on the rise in Nepal, the national Health Ministry here does not keep or collect any official cancer statistics. Dr. Rajendra Baral, director of Bharatpur Cancer Hospital says, "Population based statistics on cancer are not available in Nepal. But we recently started keeping records based on hospital cases," he said. The cases registered from the country's two cancer hospitals show that the problem of cancer is increasing each day.

According to records obtained from Baral, between 2003 and 2005, 5,913 cancer patients were seen at Bharatpur Cancer Hospital. More than half of the patients treated at the facility, 3,347, were women. More than 1,200 of the female patients were seen for uterine, cervical, or ovarian cancers.

While there is no way to predict the number of women in Nepal who are currently suffering from cancer, one research study conducted last year helped doctors estimate the degree of the problem. Dr. Arati Shah of Bir Hospital in Kathmandu, tested 6,100 women between the ages of 25 to 60 in Bhaktapur, a central district of Nepal for uterine and ovarian cancers. The study showed that 2.5 percent of the women tested had cancer. According to Shah, as many as 8.5 percent of the women tested showed potential for cancer in the future. Experts say that there are likely thousands of women in Nepal who are suffering from cancer. But poverty, and a lack of awareness and health services will prevent most women from ever seeking treatment for their cancers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, in Nepal, of every 100,000 people 120 people have cancer. On this basis, the WHO estimates that there are as many as 30,000 cancer patients in Nepal.

Dr. Baral says the increased levels of uterine and cervical cancer are the results of early marriages and intercourse, having many children, irregular eating habits, malnutrition, smoking, lack of proper hygiene and an upsurge in sexually transmitted diseases. "Many women get married at the age of 13 or 14 in Nepal and they rear many of children by the age of 30. The possibility of cancer is more in such women," Baral said.

According to a report published in 2004 by the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, 40 percent of women in Nepal get married before they reach 14 years of age while 60 percent get married between the age of 15 and 19. The reproductive rate of Nepali women is 4.1 per person and 21 percent of women have children between the ages of 15 and 19. Though the government of Nepal has outlawed marriage before the age of 18, the practice is still common.

Chaudhary was a child bride. She was married at the age of 15 to Mahato, who was the same age, in 1989. She bore her first child at the age of 16 and she went on to have three more children over the next ten years.

Chaudhary says when she first developed severe pain in her lower abdomen and vagina she did not tell her husband for fear that he would leave her and marry another woman. She says she ignored the pain for four months but when it got worse she traveled the 25 kilometers by bus to Asha Medical Center, a private clinic in the Chitwan district.

"I took a loan of 400 rupees (about $5.70 USD) from a neighbor and got myself checked at the doctor," Chaudhary said. But doctors there were unable to diagnose her at the health center and they advised her to travel to the cancer hospital in Kathmandu. "As soon as I reached [the hospital], the doctors said [they needed] to remove my uterus." She added, "After the operation I felt better. But now I am again experiencing the same pain."

Chaudhary's physician Dr. Pariyar says, "When she came to the hospital three years ago, it was already late. Among the four stages of cancer, she is in the final stage and now we cannot do anything. She will not live long."

Chaudhary is currently undergoing chemotherapy, which is very rare in Nepal. Few facilities have the technology and the cost of the treatment is prohibitive for most patients, as a single dose costs as much as 8,000 rupees, or $115 USD. Pariyar says she is also taking medication to relieve her pain. Her treatment costs are now nearing 30,000 rupees, about $429 USD. Her family pays for her treatment with a loan that her mother took from local villagers.

According to the former chief of Cancer Prevention, Control and Research Department of Bharatpur Cancer Hospital, Dr. Murari Man Shrestha, more women could be prescreened for cancer if they received the Pap Smear tests. However, Shrestha says that due to a shortage of specialists, resources and awareness, most women in Nepal never receive the test.

Advocate Dhungana says the government is creating awareness on epidemics like dysentery, leprosy and AIDS, but is not doing anything significant to prevent cases of uterine and cervical cancer. "Since all the sectors are male dominated, women are barred even the minimum information and awareness that they should get and due to this their lives are in danger," she said.

Meanwhile, Health Ministry officials say that they are aware of the problem. Arjun Bahadur Singh, chief of policy, planning and international cooperation division at Health Ministry of Nepal, says, "In the future, we are trying to create awareness, alert people about cancer and stop the disease in its starting phase."

For Chaudhary, after she finishes her chemotherapy treatment, she wants to return home. She says she will work hard to pay the loan that she took for the treatment and she wants to send her four children to school. Her husband says, "Doctors say we came to hospital very late but the hope that she will live will linger until her last breath."

A hundred yards from the Panamerican Highway, just a few miles south of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Lucia Pérez Díaz lives with her husband and six children in a small house made of rough wooden boards lined with plastic to keep the mountain chill at bay.

In the neighborhood, officially part of the larger Maria Auxiliadora neighborhood, but called the Colonia del Artículo by those who live there, corn stalks rustle in the woodsmoke scented breeze, baby chicks peep, and men work at a small cinder block operation nearby. The Colonia is small. There are only 15 homes in the neighborhood.

Recently, the appearance of the neighborhood has changed. Today a high, bright green fence runs along the back perimeter of Díaz's lot, hiding her dirt patio, chicken coop, and humble home from the families that picnic and splash in paddleboats at the new Wetlands Park, El Parque de los Humedales next door. The park is part of a new government project which aims to conserve 86 acres of wetland while promoting tourism and environmental education.

The Wetlands Park centers around an elegant timber-framed conference center and café with expansive windows that look out across an artificial lake, home to an endangered native fish species called the Popoyote. Visitors may rent small boats to use on the pond and picnic at pavilions on the water's edge. Former Chiapas governor Pablo Salazar proudly cited the park as one of his administration's accomplishments upon leaving office in December.

But, the new park has thrust Díaz and her neighbors into uncertainty and conflict. The city government maintains that the families living here have invaded city-owned land and must leave their homes so that the parcel can be protected and further developed for public use. City officials say that Mario Jiménez, 64, the man who claims to own the land, lied to Díaz and her neighbors and sold them land that never belonged to him.

Though the families hold bills of sale for the land and pay taxes on it, officials maintain that their paperwork is invalid and that the land belongs to the government. "The families will have to vacate [the land] sooner or later," said the city's legal counsel, Javier Antonio Rodríguez. He said that the government has no obligation to help them find other homes or to ensure that Jiménez refunds their money.

But Jiménez claims that former Governor Manuel Velasco Suárez, who died in 2001, gave him the land in 1979 to thank him for his years of service as a ranch manager, and holds notarized documents signed by Suárez and his wife that name him as the owner of the property.

City officials question the legitimacy of Jiménez's documents, and Alejandro Bermúdez, head of Public Works, said that Jiménez and the families he sold land to are "invaders." Bermúdez said in December that his primary motive for creating the park was to protect the fragile wetland from people like Jiménez who squat on unused lots.

While officials are proud of the new park, they are unhappy that the ragged assembly of houses and cornfields beside it is still standing. "They are the fly in the pie," said Alberto Paredes of the State Public Works Department and one of the park's architects, standing on a dock beside the artificial lake.

For nearly a year, officials have been trying to remove the families from the land. In April 2006, Bermúdez, then the Director of Urban Development and Planning, wrote a letter to Jiménez that gave him twenty-four hours to vacate the land beside the park.

But Jiménez obtained a protection order from a state judge who, according to his lawyer Delmar Citalan, ruled that Bermúdez did not have the legal authority to issue an eviction notice.

Still, Bermúdez remains undeterred. He said the city has started legal proceedings against Jiménez and said in December that he expected to resolve the situation by March 2007. "We are going to throw him in jail," said Bermúdez.

The conflict in the Colonia del Artículo is part of a larger, widespread issue of unregulated land use in San Cristóbal. Since 1974, over 35 thousand people, originally from the neighboring indigenous community of San Juan Chamula have migrated to San Cristóbal for political, economic and social reasons, said Domingo Lopez Angel, President of the Representative Council of Indigenous people of the Highlands of Chiapas.

The Zapatista uprising in 1994 brought even more migrants to San Cristóbal, who echoed Emiliano Zapata's cry that "the land belongs to those who work it." Across the state, Zapatistas and members of the Organizacion Campesina Emiliano Zapata settled on unused land. Some of the properties belonged to large private landowners, while others are public land.

The organized movement resulted in the formation of several neighborhoods in San Cristóbal. Some neighborhoods, including Primero de Enero and Emiliano Zapata, have been granted ownership of the land they occupied. Others remain without rights to the land where they have settled. The State Housing Institute, responsible for settling land conflicts, did not respond to repeated inquiries for comment. "I want it to be clear that we are not invaders, we are recovering our land," said Lopez Angel.

Jímenez, too, is adamant that he is not an invader. He said that he was ignorant of property laws and did not list his property in the Public Register because he thought that the notarized document signed by Governor Velasco Suárez, the land's supposed donor, was enough to establish his ownership. "It was a bit of ignorance. I thought that these papers were enough, that I was going to be okay," said Jiménez, who said he began the legal proceedings to fully establish his ownership of the land in 2003.

It is known that Governor Suárez donated several pieces of the land near the neighborhood to public institutions during his governorship (1970-1976), though no records indicate that he also donated to individuals. Today the research institution the College of the Southern Border (ECOSUR by its Spanish initials), the technical school Conalep, and a high school stand on land donated by the former governor.

Regardless of whether or not the former governor did give Jiménez the land, he is still not listed as the owner of the land in the Public Register. Therefore he is not the legitimate owner and is not allowed to sell it until his paperwork is in order and he is listed in the register, said lawyer Diego Cadenas, human rights defender with the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center in San Cristóbal.

Jiménez admits that he has sold two plots of land, to the families of Díaz and Maria Gómez Juárez, but said he did so because he needed money to pay for the legal fees involved in regularizing his land. To date, Jiménez estimates that he has spent over $50,000 MXP (about $5000 USD) trying to legalize his land.

It is difficult to say how much money Jiménez had earned through the potentially illegal sale of land, because it is unclear how many lots have been sold. Jiménez claims to have sold two lots, to Diaz and Juárez, and divided the rest of his land amongst his 11 children. Residents Díaz and Juárez, however, claim that he has sold over 20 plots, charging between $15,000 MXP to $100,000 MXP (about $1,500 to $10,000 USD) per lot. Meanwhile, Bermúdez of the Public Works Department said that Jiménez has sold seventy lots.

Jiménez said that the families are growing restless because they are worried about the future of their land and do not understand that the legal process can drag on for years. He dismissed their misgivings, saying, "They just don't want to wait. They want [their papers] from one day to the next," said Jiménez.

But the residents of the neighborhood say they are nervous because Jiménez instructed them to lie to officials if ever questioned about whether or not they own the land they live on. Díaz and Juárez both claim that Jiménez instructed them to lie to government officials, and say they did not buy the land, but are Jiménez's daughters whom he allows to live on the land. Jiménez denies the claim.

Díaz said that she has no reason to lie to anyone. "We are not invaders. We pay property taxes. We don't know what's going to happen, but we bought this land", said Díaz, showing a bill of sale stating that she and her husband bought the property from Jiménez in 1999.

"We go hungry so that we can make the payments on this land. Sometimes our children go without shoes so that we can make these payments," said Díaz who came with her family to San Cristóbal from San Felipe Ecatepec, a community about three kilometers outside the city, looking for work eight years ago. Díaz's husband, Vicente Jiménez, works as a mason's helper and Díaz washes clothing for a living.

That same year, 1999, the family bought their 224 square-meter lot for $15,000 MXP (about $1500 USD). Because the couple is illiterate, they asked Jiménez if outside witnesses could be present to sign the bill of sale. Jiménez told them that he didn't want anyone from the outside present, said Díaz, and claims Jiménez said their 15 and 17 year old sons would suffice.

Both Díaz and her neighbor, Maria Gómez Juárez say that Jiménez repeatedly told them he was the owner of the land. Júarez bought her lot from Jiménez in 1989 for $30,000 MXP (about $3000 USD.) She said she first began to worry about the fate of her home last year when the city began measuring the park's perimeter. "An engineer told me my house was going to become part of the park, and that I was going to have to speak to the government. [He said the government would] give me another plot of land or money," she said.

Faced with the prospect of losing her house, Juárez admits to have altered her original bill of sale, to reflect a total investment of $80,000 MXP (about $8000 USD), as opposed the $30,000 she paid Jimenez in 1989. The Public Works office said they have no record of these claims the engineer made and maintains that the government has no responsibility toward the families that would be displaced if Jiménez is found to have sold the land illegally.

Juárez said she visited the State Human Rights Commission in December, in hopes that they would help her resolve the situation. But a lawyer from the Commission, speaking on the condition of anonymity, later told the Press Institute that the case was likely a conflict between Jiménez and Díaz and the other landholders. Since the commission only intervenes in conflicts between citizens and the state or local government, they could only inform Juárez of available resources, but do nothing more.

Díaz said that if her family is evicted, she does not know where they will go. Even if Jiménez was ordered to return the money she paid, Díaz said land prices have risen steeply in the last several years, making it nearly impossible to buy another plot of land for what they originally paid. A report recently released by Habitat for Humanity revealed that land prices in San Cristóbal are the highest in the state.

Until Jiménez and the city resolve their differences, the futures of Díaz and her neighbors remain uncertain. "I ask myself how we are going to take my wood, my things, my chickens, my dogs? Where are we going to live?" she said.

Yesterday, Sushila Basnet, 31, was busy cleaning her rented room on fourth floor of a building in the Ason bazaar, one of the most densely populated areas of Kathmandu. The walls in her room are dirty and the paint is peeling off the walls.

Basnet is a beautiful, young Nepali woman, with a dark complexion and long black hair. She moved to Kathmandu from Dolakha, a village about 150 kilometers away, after her husband died in 2005. Like many widows in Nepal, Basnet, whose name has been changed for her protection, faced discrimination and cultural hardship after the death of her husband.

Basnet's story is unfortunately typical. She was forced into an arranged marriage at the age of 26. Her parents feared that because she hadn't found a husband by that age she would remain single throughout her life. So she was married to a 46-year-old man in 2002. The marriage was not ideal. Her husband had heart disease and four children from a previous marriage. (Second marriages are not common in Nepal.) He agreed to marry Basnet because the children's mother died in 2001.

"My husband's oldest daughter was almost my age," Basnet said. The other three children were of 12, 15 and 18.

Basnet says she was not aware of her husband's medical problems before they wed. He passed away just two years after they were married. After his death, Basnet says that both families blamed her for his death and began to treat her poorly. "I was called inauspicious, and people blamed me for my husband's death," she said. Her stepchildren and other family members teased and tormented her.

In Nepal, widows are often discriminated against, blamed for their husband's deaths, and shunned from community activities. Basnet says her treatment soon escalated from just teasing. She was not allowed to participate in community gatherings or festivities. During Teej, a Hindu festival where women fast and pray Lord Shiva for the long life of their husbands, her family forced her to confine herself to her own room. They didn't want her to touch anything for puja, a process of offering to God. "When they told me not to touch anyone and anything in the house, I felt like as if I was suffering from some transferable disease," Basnet said.

After 15 months she says she could not stand the discrimination anymore, so she went to her childhood home in Dolakha, a central district. She went there searching the shelter and reprieve from the cultural torment of widowhood. But there too, she found no relief.

My sister-in-laws always taunted me. They told me I was a burden to the family," Basnet said. Soon after she arrived, her family tried to force her to return to her husband's village. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Basnet recalled, "My mother herself told me that the reason for my widowhood was the sins of my past life."

So she decided to come to Kathmandu to live alone and escape the ill treatment of her relatives and community. She told her mother and sisters that she was going back to her husband's home, but instead she fled to Kathmandu. After selling all of her jewelry and valuable possessions, she was able to find shelter in the capital city.

Today, she is training to be a beautician. Socializing is difficult for Basnet. She says she cannot talk with people openly because she finds it difficult to answer questions about her past. "Life here is quite difficult. I am facing a financial crunch and even my neighbors looks at me with suspicion," she says.

Local attorney Laxmi Pokharel says that although the Supreme Court directed lawmakers to enact a law prohibiting the discrimination of widows in 2002, the law has not yet been written. The interim constitution of Nepal 2063(2006) states that all kinds of discrimination against women are illegal, Pokharel says, "But despite the legal measures this trend continues as it is rooted in our religion and culture."

In the Hindu tradition widows are told to only wear white clothes, eat only once a day, and are forbidden to wear cultural tokens like sindoor, a red powder that is put on the forehead of married Hindu women, and pote, a beaded neck piece worn only by married women. "According to our religious book, after marriage, the couple should offer their prayers together, so it is considered inauspicious for a widow to sit in puja, (a process of offering a prayer). Similarly the presence of a widow is considered inauspicious when starting a journey. Since the religion has all these provisions, this has left a negative impact on society about widows," said local priest Ram Prasad Khanal.

The Hindu religion also considers re-marriage of a widow to be a sin. In the ancient Sanskrit text the Manusmriti, a work considered important to Hindu law, it is said that widows should only eat fruits and make themselves lean and thin and should not even utter the name of other men. Similarly another religious book, Aagiras Smriti, also says that if a woman wears colorful dresses after the death of her husband, the couple is doomed to hell.

Women's Rights activist Pushpa Lata Acharya says that these practices are gradually diminishing in urban areas but are still widely adhered to in rural areas. She says, "Although the religious books are not recognized by law, [their laws] are still practiced because of the roots in our culture and tradition."

In addition to religious persecutions, widows often suffer legal and social discrimination too. Ratna Devi, 35, was married at the age of 12 to a mentally disabled person in 1984. She conceived her first child at the age of 14. She became a widow at the age of 22. She says her husband committed suicide after the couple had a fight.

Devi now lives in Tokha, a village 10 kilometers away from Kathmandu. "After being a widow one feels lonely and the behavior of the society is like sprinkling salt into the wound," Devi says. After her husband died, Devi says her brother-in-law took her fingerprints and transferred all of her properties under his own name. She filed a case with Land Registration Office, which deals with land disputes, and her property was finally returned to her in 1999.

Since she was widowed in her youth, Devi says her community often gossips about her. She says she will never remarried again because she and society think it is wrong to do so. "Now I need to think about my children's marriages" Devi said. "I will not get married ever again."

According to Khum Kanta Acharya, a section officer at the Department of Women, Children and Social Welfare, there is no legal obligation for widows to remain single. He says, "There is a legal provision that there shall be no discrimination against women. Those who discriminate can be strictly punished under the defamation act." The defamation act states that anyone found guilty of discrimination will be penalized with a fine between 100 to 500 rupees, about $1.40 to $7 USD, and can face up to six months in jail.

But the reality of the act's enforcement is minimal. Attorney Laxmi Pokharel says, "Women generally do not press charges when they are ill-treated or abused because of lack of awareness and financial resources."

According to Lily Thapa, president of Women for Human Rights (WHR), a local NGO working for rights of single women, who became a widow herself at the age of 32, says there have been few legal attempts by the government to strengthen the rights of single women in Nepal. Thapa says widows were not entitled to their late husbands’ property after remarriage until the law was changed in 2001. "Legal measures won't change the status of widowed women until we change the mindset of people," Thapa says. "This will change slowly with time."

KATHMANDU, NEPAL -- Tirtha Rai, 21, struggled to get out of her hospital bed. She was in bed number 25, in unit three at Prashuti Griha, a maternity home in Kathmandu. Her body was clad in blood stained clothes. Her eyes were filled with tears. Beads of sweats were dropping from her face.

In the small room, which lacked proper ventilation, seven women lay on separate beds. Rai was asking Bir Bahadur Rai, her husband, to take her outside for some fresh air as he was pleading with her not to move from the bed.

Rai is from Lele, a village in Lalitpur, a central district of Nepal, which is about 25 kilometers from Kathmandu. In the ninth month of her pregnancy she says she began to feel uneasy. So she traveled on foot to the nearby Bajrabarahi health post where medical workers examined her and informed her that her unborn child was already dead.

The small health post, staffed by only a few moderately trained workers, did not have the proper equipment to deliver the child. They told Rai to go to Prashuti Griha. So she and her husband urgently boarded a bus to the capital. When she arrived at the maternity home doctors delivered the dead child and saved her life.

Rai, like many women in rural Nepal, worked throughout the entirety of her pregnancy. She says she carried heavy buckets of water and baskets of grasses from nearby meadows to her house everyday. While poverty remains a major factor in infant and maternal mortality, a general lack of awareness about prenatal health also plays a role in Nepal's high mortality rates. Rai says she never visited a doctor during her pregnancy and says she was unaware of the fact that it was unsafe to perform hard labor during pregnancy. "In our village no pregnant woman goes to the doctor, and everyone works during pregnancy. I did the same thing but my child did not survive," Rai says.

Survey reports from local and international organizations show that most women in rural Nepal run a high risk for losing a child during pregnancy and dying during childbirth. According to the Family Health Department of the Government of Nepal, the maternal mortality rate in Nepal is 539 deaths per 100,000 live births. UNICEF published a report last year called "The Situation of Children and Women in Nepal," which estimated that every year 48,000 women, out of 900,000 live births, died during pregnancy or childbirth. And in late 2006, the United Nations Populations Fund ranked Nepal as the country worst affected by infant and maternal mortality in South Asia.

In recent months the government of Nepal taken new steps to develop programs geared toward helping pregnant women. One new program offers financial incentives to women if they give birth in health posts or other medical facilities. Public Health Officer Bhogendra Raj Dotel says the government is providing money to women in all 75 districts of Nepal in hopes of attracting pregnant women to deliver in safer conditions. Women are given different amounts according to the region where they live in and the distance and difficulty required to reach a health post. Women from the Himalayan regions get 1,500 rupees, about $21 USD; while women from the eastern part of Nepal get 1,000 rupees, about $14 USD; and women from the Terai region, the plains in the southern part of Nepal, earn 500 rupees, or $7 USD, for delivering in a health post. Throughout Nepal there are 27 hospitals capable of providing comprehensive obstetric services and a few thousand health posts capable of providing basic or emergency obstetric care.

But for many women, a financial incentive will not increase their likelihood of seeking medical assistance during pregnancy. Dil Maya Gurung, 41, from the Dandabasa village of Dhading, a central district of Nepal, is the mother of five children. Gurung says she never went to a health post during any of her pregnancies. During the ninth month of her last pregnancy, she says she suddenly had a terrible pain in her stomach. "I did not share my pain with anyone until I could not bear it. After I could bear it no longer I asked my husband to take me to a big hospital," she said.

Gurung comes from a poor family in a remote area. The nearest health post is about eight kilometers from her home. After she told her husband of the pain in her stomach, he took a loan of 3,000 rupees, about $43 USD, to prepare for the medical costs and then carried his wife on foot to the Dhadingbesi health post – a four hour walk from their residence. But the health workers there were unable to help Gurung and suggested she go to Maternity Hospital in Kathmandu. "By the time we reached the big hospital I had already fainted. I have no sense of what happened to me in the hospital," Gurung says. "When I opened my eyes the doctors informed me that I had lost my child even before it was born."

Public Health Officer Dotel acknowledges that government efforts to decrease infant and maternal mortality are not sufficient. "The government is providing a service but the women cannot reach the health posts," Dotel said.

Rajan Adhikari, an information support coordinator of the family health division of Support to the Safe Motherhood Program (SSMP) says that although many organizations are working to reduce infant and maternal mortality in Nepal, the lives of mothers and children are still in danger due to the geographic structure of the country. "At some places it takes about four to five hours [on foot] to bring pregnant women to health posts and some die on the way. It is possible to construct a good hospital, but we cannot change the geographical structure of the country."

For Dr. Sarita Upadhyaya, who has been working as a maternity health consultant for the last two years, there are many factors, in addition to the lack of health posts in the country, that increase the mortality rates in Nepal. "The trend of not seeing a doctor during pregnancy, the lack of trained midwives in attendance during delivery, [and common problems like] a lack of oxygen to the mother when the child is born, cutting the umbilical cord incorrectly, [and] giving the child a bath too soon after its birth are the main reasons for the increased number of infant mortalities in Nepal," Upadhyaya says.

Dr. Jyoti Sharma, the senior women's health specialist of Tribhuvan University's teaching hospital, says that to decrease the mortality rates of mothers and children, it is important to have at least four check-ups during pregnancy. However, according to UNICEF's 2006 report, 51 percent of women in Nepal do not visit the doctor even once during the pregnancy. Only 14 percent of women say they have as many as four check-ups during pregnancy.

While the number of women who seek medical care during pregnancy is low, the number of women who get medical help during and after delivery is even lower. According to the annual report of Department of Health Survey 2005-2006, among the total number of women who become pregnant, only 20 percent deliver under the supervision of medical workers.

Back at the Prashuti Griha maternity home in Kathmandu, Januka Thapa, 28, is lying in bed number 145. Her face was pale as she received a blood transfusion. She too lost her baby. Like the others she didn't have the information or the access to health care that could have saved the baby's life. "When I was in my village none of my family members suggested [that I] see a doctor. I did not know anything about it. After I came to Kathmandu, I wanted to go to the doctor but I didn't have money for that and I could not get to a doctor on time," she said.

For the last four months at least 200 people, who were displaced by the decade-long civil war in Nepal, have been living under makeshift tents in a government-owned field in the busy Tinkune neighborhood of Kathmandu. The field, about two kilometers from Tribhuvan International Airport, is surrounded from all sides with busy roads, constant traffic, and stifling pollution. The tents are made from plastic and propped up with sticks. They are barely tall enough to stand underneath. And as many as eight people live under each tiny tent.

In addition to the living tents, there is a separate tent that acts as a kitchen, though the food rations and utensils that have been donated by a few local nongovernmental organizations are scarce. Two holes dug into the dirt and covered with a plastic sheet serve as toilets for the 200 conflict victims, many of whom claim that so far they have not received the assistance they were promised by the newly formed government.

Goma Khadka, 28, of Sunsari, an eastern district of Nepal, is one of the hundreds of internally displaced people who has been living at this improvised camp ground for months. Khadka says she and others have been demanding the new government ministers, who were installed on April 1, 2007, create a safe environment so they can return home. They also want the compensation they were promised when their relatives were killed during the civil war. Khadka lives in one of the small tents with her six-year-old son. She says "Maoists killed my husband and after his death, my mother-in-law ousted me from my home." This littered field was the only place she and her son could go.

The political history in Nepal over the last decade has been tumultuous. In 1996, the Communist Party of Nepal, (CPN-Maoists), launched the People's War with the aim of overthrowing Nepal's monarchy and establishing a republic. According to the Informal Sector Service Center, INSEC, a nongovernmental organization that works for human rights in Nepal, more than 13,000 people lost their lives during a decade-long conflict. INSEC estimates that the then Royal Nepalese Army killed 8,377 people, while Maoist rebels killed another 4,970 people. No exact data has been compiled to estimate the number of Nepalis that were displaced, however INSEC estimates that as many as 200,000 people were displaced during the war.

After democracy was restored in Nepal in 2006, the Seven Party Allience, led by Girija Prasad Koirala, signed peace agreement with the Maoists and formerly ended the conflict. At that time, both parties promised to create an environment for the safe return of displaced conflict victims. Despite the political developments, thousands of displaced people across the country complain that the government, which now formally includes the Maoists, has not paid proper attention to the problems lingering in the aftermath of the war. Several citizen groups, including the Maoist Victim Struggle Committee, have formed to agitate for government participation in their safe resettlement.

Although all Nepali people were affected by the civil war in some way, women have been among the most negatively impacted, says the conservation officer of the National Human Rights Commission, Maya Devi Sharma. "The women have been the most affected due to the paternal structure of our society and their lack of awareness," she says.

Back at the tented camp, Khadka agrees. She says Maoists killed her husband Jeevan Khadka, a soldier for the Royal Nepalese Army, on July 13, 2004. On that day, she says, Jeevan came to visit her in her mother's home at Prakashpur, a village in Sunsari. At the time she was sick and bed ridden. She says Jeevan left the house, saying that he would be back after few hours, but he never returned. "Maoists cut my husband into two pieces and threw him into a jungle near our village," Khadka said, her eyes full of tears.

After the death of her husband, Khadka returned to her husband's home and completed his last rites. In the following days, she and her son lived with her in-laws. But she says she was not treated well there. Because widow discrimination is common in Nepal, many women who lost their husbands in the civil war were mistreated by family and society after their husbands were killed. Khadka says she was forced to work when she was sick; was not given proper food; her son was not enrolled in school; and she was assumed to have inauspicious character because of the death of her husband. She says she bore the treatment for one month, before she was ousted her from the house. Khadka says she couldn't stay in her village because of the discrimination, her weak economic situation, and fear of the Maoist rebels in the area. "So I have come here with a hope that the government will do something for me," she says.

Although her husband was a soldier in the government's army, the government did not provide the guaranteed compensation of 700,000 rupees, about $10,000 USD, which is promised to the families of army personnel killed during the conflict because Jeevan was technically on leave at the time when he was killed. Khadka says she wants the new government to provide her with money to educate her son, and compensate her with at least enough money to return home safely.

The spokesperson of Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction, Ramesh Sharma, confirms, "The families of soldiers that were on leave [at the time of their deaths] are not compensated." Sharma says the government may provide assistance to such families later, but provided no detailed plan of action.

The government established the Peace and Reconstruction Ministry on April 1, 2007. The ministry is charged with surveying the total damage during and in the immediate aftermath of the conflict. The new government has also allocated 3.8 billion rupees for the rehabilitation of conflict victims, none of which has been distributed yet. Dharma Raj Neupane, president of the Maoist Victim’s Struggle Committee says, "That budget is not enough to [assist all of the victims] and reconstruct damaged properties. Moreover," he says, "we have not received any of it yet."

While conflict victims complain that government has not taken concrete steps to rehabilitate the thousands of internally displaced people, government officials blame the Maoists for not fulfilling their commitments expressed in the original cease fire and peace agreements. Sharma says, "Even after the conflict has ended, the situation is such that we still cannot reach all the districts as the Maoists have not changed their behavior or returned properties [that were ceased during the war] yet."

Dharma Sheela Chapagain, a member of Nepal's interim parliament representing the Maoist party, denies the charge that Maoists have not changed their rebel behaviors or fulfilled their commitments to conflict victims. "We are fully aware of our commitments to create an environment for their safe return and to return property that was ceased and we have already started the process of returning that property," she says. Chapagain says the interim parliament has already passed a new policy for assisting the displaced, which will help to identify and assist internally displaced persons, guaranteeing their socio-economic and political rights. Though as of press time, no concrete action or plan to assist conflict victims had been put into action.

Human Right Activist Krishna Pahari says it is not just the Maoists that are responsible for the lack of assistance the displaced are receiving. He says, as of yet, no member or party in the new government has taken steps to adequately help the victims.

Khadka says that government assurances mean nothing to her anymore, "The government is not doing anything for the ill-fated people of the conflict, like us."

KATHMANDU, NEPAL -- At Dhapashi, an area about two kilometers away from Ring Road in Kathmandu, more than a dozen daily wage laborers, both males and females, carry bricks, sand, gravel and stones in bamboo baskets on their backs with the help of a namlo, a thick rope made of jute, that sits on their foreheads. The workers carry their loads up to the fourth floor of the building that is being constructed here.

Krishna Maya Tamang, 31, looks weak. Dressed in a long, wrap-around skirt and blouse, her cheeks are hollow and her face looks fatigued. Her hands and feet are dry and cracked. She is sweating as she too carries a load of about 60 kilograms of brick in a bamboo basket up to the steep steps.

Tamang came to Kathmandu from Rautahat, a central district of Nepal, ten years ago in search of work. She found work as a daily wage laborer at local construction sites. Working from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., Tamang earns about 140 rupees, about $2 USD, per day. At the construction site, Tamang's male coworkers work the same hours and carry the same heavy loads but take home more money everyday, averaging 200 rupees, about $2.80 USD, per day. Tamang confirms, "Women are paid less than the males here even though we do the same kind of work."

According to a survey conducted by the General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions (GEFONT) , more than 2 million people in Nepal work for minimal daily wages, as opposed to contract salaries. Among those 2 million workers, 75 percent are women.

Various international treaties, on which Nepal is a signatory, and the interim constitution of Nepal, which was issued following a restoration of democracy on April 24, 2006 and will be effective until a new constitution is drafted after country-wide elections expected later this year, guarantees workplace equality to women. Though wages common on construction sites around Kathmandu show otherwise. According to a survey conducted by a local NGO, The Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD) in 2006, 78 percent of women in Nepal receive lower wages on the basis of their sex in the fields of agriculture and construction.

Sapana Malla Pradhan, president of FWLD, says that although laws and the constitution do not permit unequal pay for equal work, laws are not followed especially in labor sectors, which are largely unregulated. "Due to the patriarchal mindset of society, defective social and cultural values, illiteracy and economic dependency, women have not been able to raise their voice collectively," Malla said.

Tamang says she is familiar with economic hardship. She was forced to migrate to Kathmandu because she couldn't provide basic necessities for herself and her children. She says she faces the same financial difficulties in Kathmandu. "Today I came to work with an empty stomach because I couldn't come to work yesterday because I was sick. If the contractors do not pay me today, my kitchen will be empty again tonight," Tamang said.

Unequal pay to women laborers is common in other sectors too. Kanchi Lama, 41, who works at a farm in Mandikhatar, an area near Kathmandu says, "Our pay is 120 rupees per day, (about $1.70 USD), but the men get 250 rupees, (about $3.50 USD). The work that we do is same, but they get more pay."

The men who work along side women at the construction sites hold different views about their female coworkers. Bahadur Tamang, 35, who is not related to Krishna Maya, also works as a daily wage labor. He says, "We get paid more because the amount of work that we do is more than what they do." Krishna Bahadur Pulami, 66, disagrees. "Women work at every condition, even during pregnancy or menstruation, they work as much as the men but the pay they get is less."

Nepal's Labor Minister Ramesh Lekhak says that the state has prohibited wage discrimination. "The government never discriminates in paying wages to men and women," he said, though the government does not regulate wages paid in labor sectors. While Lekhak says his office has not received any complaints or reports about of wage discrimination he acknowledges that the problem exists. But Lekhak blames the problem on the media and trade unions, which he says have not been able to create awareness about the existence of equal wage laws and policies.

Representatives of the trade union say that despite enough legal provisions regarding equal pay, it is difficult to implement them in the labor sectors, like agriculture and construction, because of disorganization and the fact that these fields have not been accepted as a part of the trade union network. Khil Nath Dahal, president of the democratic confederation of Nepalese trade unions (DECONT) says, "Most of the laborers are not even getting the wage that the state has fixed. The question about equal pay for both genders is more critical."

According to attorney Ramesh Badal, the prevalent practice of paying women less money for the same jobs is obviously discrimination and an injustice against women. "They are being cheated by the constructors and the owners who provide work to them," he says.

Some construction site managers, however, reject the claim that they pay unequal wages based on gender. The building constructor at Adhikary Construction Pvt. Ltd., R.P Siwakoti, claims that local trade unions are making an unnecessary fuss over this issue. "We have been paying equal wages for equal work for all of our 40 employees," he said. His employee, Rakesh Khadka, says that's not true. "The wage that we [men] get in the company is double the amount of what the women get." But because daily wage laborers do not have contracts and are not issued receipts for their labor, both Siwakoti and Khadka were unable to prove their wage claims. Twenty-eight year old Laxmi Khadka, the wife of Rakesh Khadka, has been working as a daily wage laborer and potter for the past 12 years. "My husband and I do the same work but his wage is 100 rupees (about $1.40 USD) more than what I get. If I raise my voice against it, the owner and the [construction site manager] that give us work will not allow me to work tomorrow. What can we do?"

Still, there are women laborers who do not mind being paid less than their husbands and male coworkers. Urmila K.C., 35, who has been working for a construction company at Dhapashi in Kathmandu for seven years says, "My husband has to get a better wage than I do, and he surely is getting it. Although we perform same work, if his wage is not more than mine, society will degrade him."