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Women Have Been Exploited & Authorities Are Silent

Published: Mon 11 Jul 2005 02:20 PM
Women Have Been Exploited & Authorities Are Silent
By Kamala Sarup
Widespread poverty remains the major challenge to development efforts. Poverty is also closely related to women. Women face greater economic burden because several factors. Even the political economic and social empowerment of women is a prerequisite for development but poverty and difficult circumstances affect women and their families all over the world.
Women have domestic work burden. Women's work is still not recognized as a part of the national economy. They suffer from injustice. The discriminatory system has put women in a powerless disadvantaged position.
Quality of life eludes hundred of millions of women due to grave socio economic gender and ethnic inequalities. It is clear that the contribution of women to both domestic and economic life is consistently undervalued. It is very necessary that the nation understands the importance of the overall growth of the women and provide them with the various trainings, education and facilities. It is also necessary to make arrangements for the social and financial development.
On the other hand women are victims of war. " We want to be able to go to the market without being afraid to step on a land mine".These words spoken by 26 years old Noris. Now she is one of hundreds of thousands of women directly affected by the war. Her uncle sent her to big city to avoid the terror that have become part of life in a large portion of rural countries.
With the escalation of murders, bombings of the buildings, strikes and other forms of violence and disruptions, thousands of women like Noris and Tara are pouring into urban areas.
Many women have problems of depression and suppression. The indirect effect is much larger.
Noris said "We don't want to die early".
"One day I arrived home from Market and found my father had been killed. I ran to my friends and we fled into the Big City". These are words of Suchitra Thapa.
"When I heard about my father's death, I cried a lot." She said.
Women living on the streets due to war are "extremely vulnerable". They are almost certain to have to sell sex to survive. They are homeless, forced to flee because of the war.
Women associated with gurilas are often stigmatized because of their participation in the war.
Women are facing multiple threats.
Women groups are the affected the most. Increasingly, internal conflict, rooted in ideas of human identity and often expressed with frightening intensity, is the major threat to stability and peace, at the individual, local and international levels.
During the last several decades many countries made many commitments in the national and international level. Unfortunately these promises have only remained in lip services and political gambit.
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(A Nepali journalist Kamala Sarup is an editor of http://www.peacejournalism.com)

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