Untitled - Care Nepal

Lack of decision making power in
reproductive health is a crucial issue in
women’s disempowerment. International
research shows for example, that women
have poor psychosocial status due to
reproductive health related factors such as
sexual abuse to the women by non spouse,
verbal abuse and sexual exploitation from
their spouses (V Patel, HA Weiss, BR
Kirkwood, S Pednekar, P - International
journal of epidemiology, 2006–IEA).
Pregnant women from low income
countries have had high prevalence of
physical and mental violence compared to
developed countries. (Eliette Valladares a ,
Rodolfo Peña a , Lars Åke Persson b , Ulf
Högberg c , 2005). Women in South Africa
have had higher level of distress due to
childlessness compared with women who
had children (S.J. Dyer 1, 4 , N. Abrahams 2 ,
N.E. Mokoena 1 , C.J. Lombard 3 and Z.M.
van der Spuy).
Women use different coping strategies to
overcome the psychosocial problems
caused by social and gender based violence.
Majority of women fought back first and
some of them left home to escape from
severe physical abuse however many
returned back after some hours. The
majority of women share their problems
with their parents and a few of them go to
the authorities for protection and rights. (S.J.
Dyer 1, 4 , N. Abrahams 2 , N.E. Mokoena 1 , C.J.
Lombard 3 and Z.M. van der Spuy).
ARMED CONFLICT
CONTEXT IN NEPAL
After the 40 point demand was ignored by
His Majesty’s Government, on February 13,
1996, the CPN(M) attacked police posts
and a state-owned agricultural development
bank thus starting the “People’s War”.
Initially, the People’s War led by Chairman
Prachanda, Supreme Commander of the
CPN (M), was limited to minor attacks on
police posts in the Midwestern
Development Region. Then a soft-drink
bottling factory owned by a multi-national
company was attacked and a portion of the
building torched in Kathmandu. A liquor
factory was blown up in Gorkha district and
the office of the Small Farmer’s
Development Program of the state-owned
Agricultural Development Bank attacked.
A landlord’s house was raided at night; cash
and other properties worth 1.3 million
rupees seized, and loan documents worth
several million rupees reportedly destroyed.
However, no attacks were made on the
Royal Nepal Army, and King Birendra did
not use the RNA against the Maoists
(Mehta, 2005; Ogura, 2004).
The violence continued to be isolated until
2001, when several factors converged to
change drastically the situation. In June of
2001, the Royal Massacre occurred. The
public story was that the crown prince had
killed his father, King Birendra, and the
majority of the royal family before killing
himself. The conspiracy theory in the
bazaars and tea shops was that Gyanendra,
King Birendra’s younger brother, had
orchestrated the massacre with the
Psychosocial Issues of
Women affected by conflict
7