Tucked in just to the north of the many lines of yachts in Marina del Rey is Mother’s Beach, a favorite play destination for mothers and nannys because of its placid waters and kid-friendly attractions like swings, slides and a jungle gym. However, the nannies clustered together here this morning say they know that it's safer for the children to run through the playground than venture into the water.

When approached, all agreed that the water, only a few meters away, was contaminated. Jutta Weber, a nanny, said she was "very aware" of the pollution in the bay here. “I do not go into the water," she said. "Three months ago, I had a scratch on my leg, went [into the water], and got an infection.” She added, “If it was up to me, I would not take the children into the water. But if the parents tell you to, what can you do?”

At the other end of the beach, a group of children, who were under the watchful eyes of their counselors at the Sierra Adventure Camps, played games in the sand and rode around in small boats. Few waded into the water, but none are allowed to swim. “Our policy is that we only allow swimming in A-rated water,” said Camp Director Heather Hibbeler. “And we never allow swimming at Mother’s Beach.”

In May, Mother’s Beach scored noticeably low on Heal the Bay’s 18th Annual Beach Report Card. Heal the Bay, a nonprofit organization dedicated to monitoring and improving water quality in Santa Monica Bay, found pollutants that runoff from the streets leak down into Mother's Beach. Drop a cigarette onto the ground. Let used motor oil to flow into a nearby drain. Don’t pick up your dog’s little gift off of the sidewalk. All of this waste, and the harmful chemicals associated with it, can often end up in an unlikely place -- the equivalent of the neighborhood playground.

“In my opinion, Mother’s Beach and all beaches deep in non-circulating parts of any harbor should be off-limits to swimming," says UCLA’s Dr. Linwood Pendleton, co-author of a 2006 study titled “Public Health Costs of Contaminated Coastal Waters: A Case Study of Gastroenteritis at Southern California Beaches. Pendleton says that it is a well-documented fact that local beaches contain high bacteria levels, but says many other pollutants – especially those associated with urban development – are common here. Mother’s Beach is just one of seven of the Santa Monica Bay beaches designated potentially hazardous.

Often the health problems associated with contact with contaminated water are delayed or attributed to other causes, says Pendleton, whose study found that keeping Southern California's swimming areas clean would prevent up to 1.5 million cases of gastrointestinal illness every year. Health care costs associated with contact with contaminated ocean water reach upwards of $400 million, Pendleton reported in 2006.

Little was being done about these contaminated areas until 2006 when the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, the government agency charged with protected water quality, voted to begin fining cities up to $10,000 a day if their runoff water quality, the cause of excess the excess pollutants, did not improve. The fines would have totaled up to $200,000 daily county-wide. The initiative, however, remains toothless as warnings of impending fines were met with lawsuits.

In March, the control board issued a series of warnings and violation notices demanding that twenty cities in Los Angeles County, including Bellflower and Arcadia, immediately report the sources of their unsafe runoff. Using a scale known as the Total Maximum Daily Load, or TMDLs, the notices asked city governments to recognize and report the dangerous and unhealthy bacteria levels in the water that consequently leak into the storm drain system and flow into the ocean at locations like Mother’s Beach.

“We definitely commend the regional board on moving forward,” said Kirsten James, Heal the Bay’s Water Quality Director. As for actually solving the storm water problem, James says there is still a long way to go.

“We are seeing a lot of piecemeal approaches,” she said. Some cities have taken steps in the right direction. In the summer of 2000, Santa Monica completed the Urban Runoff Recycling Facility, which cleans an average of 500,000 gallons of runoff water a day, after being labeled one of the most polluted beaches in Southern California. But as James points out, the problem of polluted water is constantly growing. “If they’re not forced, the problem can remain indefinitely,” James says.

Unfortunately, before the impact of the violation notices could be determined, an old lawsuit re-emerged and stopped the initiative dead in its tracks.

On July 3, 2008, a writ was issued by the Orange County Supreme Court that prohibited the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board from pursuing any further action against those found to be polluting the water. The recent legal action stems from the ongoing civil case Cities of Arcadia, et al v. State Water Resources Control Board et al, in which Arcadia and twenty other cities, all part of an hoc organization known as the Coalition for Practical Regulation (CPR), mostly from eastern Los Angeles County, contend that the Regional Board was issuing the fines outside of its directives.

According to Los Angeles' Water Code sections 13241 and 13000, the Regional Board is required to examine whether the water standards that it sets are also economically viable. The cities that have joined Arcadia in the lawsuit, such as Lawndale, Commerce and Paramount, argue that it is not economically feasiblegiven the city's already stretched budgets, to conform to new water quality standards.

“The water boards should recognize that all levels of government – local, county, state, and federal – have limited financial resources to tackle major water quality problems,” said CPR spokesperson and Signal Hill councilmember Larry Forester in a press release dated July 10. He added that imposing these unachievable standards “diverts important public resources away from programs to address real water quality programs.”

Fran Diamond, the chair of the regional board was diplomatic in her response. “The Board respects the law and Court’s directive and is looking forward to working collaboratively with all stakeholders so we can resume our basic mission of protecting water quality, public health and the environment from the devastating effects of polluted storm water runoff,” Diamond said.

Diamond added that she and the regional board members "are very concerned about the impact of this decision on water quality and our community.”

Of course, the court order curtails the ability of a government agency to create legal punishments for industries and cities that produce or allow excess pollutants. Historical precedent, however, leans heavily on the side of using fines and lawsuits to clean up the environment, no matter the economic cost.

When the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, Los Angeles had an outdated water treatment system that was essentially dumping sludge several miles off of the coast. By the 1980s, Santa Monica Bay was literally contaminated, with mutations in marine life such as tumors on dolphins, patches of ‘dead zones’ where ocean fauna was dramatically reduced and only 13 species of anything were able to survive near the sewage outflow pipes. Those pipes ran five miles into the ocean from the dramatically underdeveloped Hyperion Water Treatment Facility. The organization Heal the Bay was founded in 1985 largely to force the city to accept responsibility for its pollution and to spend resources creating a solution. Threats came with the words and declarations of the 1972 legislation, but progress came with the EPA lawsuit that Heal the Bay joined in 1985.

The reconstruction of Hyperion did not come without expenditure or difficulty, as the initiative cost 1.6 billion dollars and the process has been compared by Hyperion tour director Nancy Carr to “turning a 707 into a 747 in mid-flight.” Nonetheless, the effort has paid huge dividends, and the entire facility was declared to be one of the Top 10 Public Works of the last century by the American Public Works Association.

Today, over 170 species live directly by the facility’s outflow pipes, located five miles off the coast. “Hyperion is extremely well monitored and in the big picture the Hyperion treatment plant has done more to improve water quality conditions in Santa Monica Bay than almost any other action,” said Pendleton.

Though the CPR contends that the Regional Water Board’s loss of punitive ability will not affect local governments’ existing water quality programs, Pendleton and other experts agree that fines are an essential tool in getting municipalities to take action. According to Pendleton, "the fine system says ‘LA County, you figure out how to fix the problem and if you don’t we will fine you until you do.’”

Perched on the busy corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Federal Avenue in West Los Angeles, Shell Oil Company debuted California's first retail Hydrogen refueling station last month. Since all of the other Hydrogen stations in California are gated and located in private research centers, the newest station, which will likely be scarcely used, aims to take new hydrogen fuel technology from inside research centers and into public view.

Hydrogen is often touted as the best choice in the search for alternative energy sources. According to publicity documents produced by General Motors -- the corporation is one of many focusing its energy on "progressive engineering” -- hydrogen fuel cells are "the best long-term solution for powering automobiles in a sustainable way.” But despite the prominent refueling station and other Hydrogen-related initiatives taking place throughout California, many experts say that it will be a long time coming before hydrogen cars are a fixture on the streets of Los Angeles, or any city for that matter.

The concept of hydrogen fueled vehicles hit California's mainstream four years ago when California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger began to address the need for a sustainable and renewable energy sources in California. The campaign, now known as The Hydrogen Highway Project, came to life in 2004 when the governor signed an executive order to issue greater research funds and infrastructure to improve both the environment and the economy.

Since hydrogen fuel is still in the pre-commercial stages, LA's new station will be primarily used as a marketing and awareness tool. Alexandra Smith, Shell’s representative for chemicals and future fuels said, “The Santa Monica Boulevard station is considered a demonstration program that we hope will eventually lead to a commercially viable business.”

Most of the station's hydrogen customers are the neighboring car dealerships that test-drive hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Among them are General Motors, Honda, and BMW – all showcase their hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on properties neighboring the new station.

There are many domestic and international car manufacturers currently exploring the reality of Hydrogen energy. The General Motors Fuel Cell Team, currently conducting the Chevrolet Equinox “Project Driveway” campaign, has manufactured an estimated 100 hydrogen-fueled vehicles and have released them for marketability tests in Southern California, New York City, Washington D.C., and areas in Canada. The marketing trials in the US allow citizens, 21 and over, with a valid drivers license to test-drive these vehicles in the company of a sales agent.

According to Diedra Wylie, a communications representative with GM, leasing the Chevy Equinox during this phase of marketing is currently limited to a small handful of mainstream consumers in Los Angeles and New York, as well as select celebrities including Jay Leno and Fred Armisen. Other GM-Hydrogen marketing campaigns have included a recent partnership with Virgin Atlantic and reps say that you can expect several Hollywood celebrities to drive the Equinox to the Emmy's.

Other hydrogen car models are being developed by Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Daihatsu, Fiat, Ford, Giugiaro, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Mercedes, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Peugeot, Pininfarina, Renault, Suzuki, Think, Toyota, and Volkswagen. Eight of these twenty-two corporations are directly partnered with California‘s Hydrogen Highway Project.

Employees of the Shell station confirm that the hydrogen pump is drawing great interest from passers-by. Customers who visit the station to pump regular gasoline often walk into the new hydrogen information center, which was constructed one door down from the Shell Food Mart and Car Wash.

With gas prices still steady in the $4.50 range, many Californians are anxious for a change at the pumps. Los Angeles resident and Mazda owner, Malorie Oriente said, “People’s wallets are really feeling the need for a change in fuel resources.”

While politicians and scientists agree that hydrogen energy is a viable option for alternative energy resources, hydrogen comes with challenges of its own. “Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe,” said Dimitri Stanich, from the California Air Resources Board. “if we can figure out an easy and economical way to purify [hydrogen] on a regular basis and on a national level it would benefit us greatly economically and environmentally.”

But Hydrogen is most often found combined with other elements. It is in separating these molecules where the challenges arise, because this process will likely lead to more pollution or continued reliance on unsustainable resources. However, Roy Kim with California Fuel Cell Partnership says, “The whole life cycle [of hydrogen] can be a zero emission which is being demonstrated now, if production can come from clean energy sources.” Examples of low emission hydrogen production include extracting hydrogen from water and also from waste gases.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles emit only water vapor and fuel production can be done domestically, both of which have great environmental and economic advantages. “In California, transportation accounts for 75 percent of air pollution and greenhouse gases,” said Stanich of the Air Resources Board. “If we were able to develop a clean and efficient way of powering our transportation sector we would be well on our way to combating our air pollution problem.”

In the nascent stages of the Hydrogen Highway Project, Governor Schwarzenegger told members of the Legislature, Cabinet secretaries, and justices in his California address in January of 2004, “I intend to show the world that economic growth and the environment can coexist. And if you want to see it, then come to California.”

Five years later, the need for alternative energy sources is more apparent than ever. In an attempt to fill that need and continue to market Hydrogen's potential, The California Fuel Cell Partnership has already planned the launch of ten more Hydrogen refueling stations in California, four of which will be located in Los Angeles County.

Teresa Moore is a Senior Communication Studies Major at Loyola Marymount University.

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.