Nepal: Women activists demand to see new draft constitution

Women's rights groups in Nepal say they are being left out of negotiations at a critical time, weeks before the country's Constituent Assembly (CA) is meant to agree on a new constitution.

"We need a constitution in time and we need a women-friendly constitution," Bijaya Karishma, a programme officer for Sankalpa, a women's alliance campaigning for peace, justice and democracy, told IRIN. "We have the right to see a draft and are concerned that we have not."

Women's rights advocates say they have the most to gain or lose with this constitution: they expect it will grant women rights to pass on citizenship to their children and to independently own property. They also hope it will mandate 50 percent female representation at all levels of government.

But these advocates, like the rest of the public, are still waiting to see the constitution's draft. They say the release of the document is the first step to opening up the political process.

They will probably be kept in the dark well past 31 August - the third deadline since 2008 for the constitution's completion - as certain political sticking points, like the reintegration of Maoist fighters into the army, remain unresolved.

Vigil

The lapsed deadline will bring more of the same for the women's rights advocates: long days spent holding vigil, as they call it, outside the national parliament building's gates.

"We have to be watchdogs. We have to help ensure that there is an end to this peace-building process," said Rita Thapa, founder of Sankalpa.

On a humid Sunday afternoon, Karishma, of Sankalpa, paced under a grey tent, making room for the fruit vendors that were threatening the workspace she and her colleagues had carved out. Sankalpa - one of 11 women's rights groups that have protested daily outside the parliament for the past three months - was on shift today.

Down the road, inside the parliament's red brick walls, an equally engaged struggle was being waged between the marginalized 197 female representatives of the multi-party parliament or CA.

Lobbying secured women 33 percent representation in the 601-person CA, charged with writing the constitution, and at all levels of government - a jump from the 20 percent representation formerly allotted to women.

But deeply rooted patriarchal systems in this nation of 29 million still create hurdles for female CA members who routinely face attempted political manipulation and disrespect.

The recently introduced system of proportional representation led to the nomination of 167 female members. Some of them had no political experience and little or no formal education.