Untitled - Care Nepal

"Women work whole day and night but men drink
alcohol and gamble. Men blamed that women
would elope if they speak with any man.
Because of this women feel sad and dominated".
(A woman aged 28 yrs, married, B/C,
teacher from Sarlahi)
"In our community, women are not allowed to
walk freely like men. If educated women go to
their office then community people take
unnecessary interest and criticize by saying that
daughter in law is going outside from home
instead of helping her mother in law in their
household work. Then, a woman has a fear that
family would mistreat her because of such
backbiting from community people".
(A woman, 36 yrs old, B/C, female health
worker, married from Sarlahi)
In the past sometimes 5 to 10 people used to
come to our home and ask for food and shelter.
Now there is a fear in women whether similar
groups will come and abduct their children.
(A man, 30 yrs, male, janajati,
teacher from Sarlahi)
It was also reported by the KII participants
that there was fear and worry due to the
current situation of Terai. Ethnic tension
between pahade and madhesis, and fear of
kidnapping of children by unknown groups
or persons were mentioned frequently by
women.
Women have fear all the time because of
Madhesi strike. Women have fear to go even to
headquarters because of the heavy presence of
Madhesis. There are situations like Madhesi don't
like hilly people and hilly people don't like
Madhesi people.
She added, "Because of the rumor that now
there are people in village who will abduct the
children and take out their eyes; women have
been going through much fear from 10-15 days.
We have to suspect if there is any Madhesis
wearing dirty clothes and having long beard".
(A woman, 36 yrs old, B/C, female health
worker, married from Sarlahi)
According to participants, fear and terror
were omnipresent during the height of the
armed conflict. An example of fear staying
in the lives of women was talked about in
reference to helicopters. If a helicopter (chil
gadi), local terminology of helicopter) flew
across the sky, they remembered the
incident when bombs were thrown from
night vision helicopters to their village
which scares them till today. During the
30
Psychosocial Issues of
Women affected by conflict