women cook, clean, do the heavy labouring and manual work, carry massive loads on their backs, can move huge rocks, and are seen as second class to males. They work harder, longer, for less reward. Other issues facing women here are human trafficking, selling young girls as indentured servants to higher-caste homes, forced marriages, caste stigma, witchery-accusations and domestic abuse.

In legal news:

If a women does not bear her husband a son within 10 years of marriage, the man is legally allowed to take a second wife.

In 2005 a law was passed allowing a women under 35 to apply for a passport without her parents or husbands permission.

A bill to provide support for domestic violence victims (and differentiate domestic violence from other acts of violence – at the momentthere is only a law regarding assault that can be used), come up in parliament for 13 years, was dismissed at the end of the 2008 session.

The rural custom of banning a women from the house while she had her period was only made illegal in 2005.

There is hope though! There are many cooperatives for women in Nepal, providing employment and training, education, health care and support for their children. One is the Association for Craft Producers, who are actually a producer group that sells to Trade Aid in New Zealand, and who I am hoping to go visit next week. They have a store here in Kathmandu called Dhukuti. Another shop I visited last week with Mum was also a women’s co-operative called Spiral Foundation in conjunction