Birth is a beginning…not an end, unlike how the Caste System in Nepal treats it.
16 days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign started a few days ago. A campaign that started in 1991 aims to raise awareness about the subject and to spur people into action to end violence against women and girls.
Before abortion was legalized in Nepal in 2002, "up to one-fifth of incarcerated women were convicted of abortion-related crimes" and "more than half of maternal deaths during the one-year study period [was attributed] to abortion-related complications."
Now we have a pro-life Christian organization with 32K strong volunteers, and hospitals run by a Christian organization most likely staffed by also conservative pro-life Christian doctors who follow their religion's narrow dictates when it comes to abortion.
The story of two young Nepali adults in love but struggling with a dilemma that many like them do: they are from different castes and their parents don't approve of their desire to get married and start a family. But the comments under their story on Facebook, where I found it, fills me with hope!
The combination of a highly patriarchal society and an abysmally poor quality of education in Nepal means that boys and men view girls and women as inferior and treat them as such. One such example is viewing them as the culpable party for when they become victims of violence, as happened on social media over an incident involving the rape of an Australian woman by a Nepali man.
Sex, we are born with. Gender, however, is a social construct. Except, in Nepali society, that simple fact is NOT understood very well, mainly because of our very patriarchal and misogynistic society, and abysmally poor quality of education. But here's an opportunity for you to challenge and question your Nepali-culture inculcated ideas of what constitutes the female gender.
November 8, 2012: it had just been two days since the re-election of President Obama in the US. That day, I shared, on Facebook, how who is in the White House doesn't make a real difference to the US and the world. I argued that regardless of who is in that House in Washington DC, because the systems in place are completely rigged and those who control, run, and enforce them are corrupt, a significant percentage of the American and world population will continue to suffer.
Here's a reproduction of that Facebook post and the interesting discussion I had underneath it with friends, interesting especially now since the election of Trump to the same office!