26th-09-2012
The UN (1995) defines the status of women in the context of their access to knowledge,
economic resources and political power as well as their personal autonomy in the
process of decision making.
When Nepalese women's status is analyzed in this
light, they are found underprivileged, underrepresented and exploited in all spheres
of society. Based on the Nepal Human Development Report (1998), it is estimated
that 48% of women are living below the poverty line.Though Nepal has shown some
improvement in the Human Development Index in 2011, the living condition of women
has not been changed significantly in practice.
The eight goals of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted by the international
community in 2000, set targets for 2015 on eradicating poverty and all of these goals
touch essential aspects of women’s well-being. Based on MDGs, Nepal Government's
Poverty Alleviation Program at grass root level has focused on women in the later part.
However, the women poverty is deeply widening further.
Women in Nepal have lower access in Employment and job profile of the women
too is very low. The underlined causes for not having access to better employment
opportunities are mentioned as follows:
a) Lack of employment focused skills, knowledge and opportunities: In Nepal, skill
development opportunities are very limited and women are basically trained on
traditional skills. Furthermore, trainings are provided as per the priority of the donor or
funding agency. Even government trainings are not impact oriented.
Lack of authorized
skill development centre for women causes lack of useful skill for employment that the
market demands.
b) Least access of women over the economic resources despite heavy work load in
either low paid or non-paid works: Women work hard and the working hour is longer but
yet, their works are either non-paid or low paid. They are basically engaged in domestic
or agricultural works. Though they toil a lot from starting to end, seven days a week,
their works are not recognized.
(c) Women are vulnerable to sexual and other types of exploitation, being exploited in
the name of employment or income generation opportunity:
Since, women status is very
low in family and they are marginalized in the society, there are more chances to be
exploited. Since women have lower income and least access over the resources, they
are easily exploited in the name of employment or income generation opportunity.
d) Nominal or no presence of women in the most challenging works like driving
which are predominantly accepted as Men's profession: There are differences and
discriminations based on gender.
There are works or professions separated by the
traditional society for men and women. These discrimination and specifications hinder
women to march out into the society and accept challenges in the new and courageous
professions. It needs a great courage to march out into the arena of challenges and only
a few could do so due to the social structure, norms, set beliefs and many other socio-
cultural factors.
Challenging works are called men's profession and thus, women have
nominal or no presence in such jobs. Driving training for the women is a positive effort
for dismantling the negative attitude towards women in the society.
When we talk about driving job, we should consider the fact about road accidents
too. Actually it should be taken together with road safety but the situation in Nepal
is so worst that driving and road accidents usually move in pararell. Road accidents
are increasing in Nepal due to increased vehicle fleet and speed.
This has become a
serious problem which killed more than 1734 people’s life and injury of more than 11000
people in year 2009/10.
There are multiple factors behind the growing number of road accidents in Nepal
including: negligence of driver, inappropriate overtaking, consumption of alcohol, over
speeding, mechanical factor, overload, negligence and mistakes by pedestrians, and
cattle roaming freely on the streets. Other reasons include narrow roads and sharp
bends on the highways.
Developing better and safer attitudes, safer vehicles and so safer roads and preventing
road fatalities may be difficult but not impossible.
The government needs to make
changes, but we also need to change our habits and take on our own responsibilities
to act and drive safely. Personal effort counts and group effort can be even better.
If drivers are trained well in thousands and if they sit behind the wheel with proper
knowledge and confidence along with social attitude, positive change is obvious. And
if they are the team of women, the impact would be even powerful for the statistics has
shown lesser number of accidents caused by women in comparison to men.
Realizing the need, Laxmi Pratisthan has developed a three-year project of developing
1000 women drivers through three months package programme. Women from rural
communitites and those who are vulnerable to the exploitation are the target group.
The package includes driving along with automobile and traffic system instructions,
basic English language and Martial Arts for ensuring professional and personal safety at
roads. The main objectives of the project are as follows:
• To develop responsible and competent women drivers
•
To create employment opportunities for women
• To raise traffic awareness
• To reduce women trafficking and prostitution activities
Driving training not only opens a new arena of employment for the women but also
increases the safety in traffic.The uplifted economic status of the women will help them
enjoy the dignified life in family and society, reducing the poverty. These competent
women drivers will be safe at road and will be recognized in the field of safe driving.
Thus this is a multifacet project with multiple benefits. But it is not very easy to
accomplish.
There might arise various problems in our effort of training women in the
challenging field because there are still some stigmas in our society that don't allow
females to cross the yard of their home. The goodwill of Laxmi Pratisthan and our
sensitization efforts will be helpful to fight with those stigmas. There might be challenges
in their job placement once they are trained perfectly. Laxmi Pratisthan will do lobbying
and advocacy for it.
On top of that, budget constraint is the main challenge infront of us.
To mitigate with this challenge, we need allround support and thus we are appealing
everyone to help this pious purpose. We are very hopeful that we will meet our target of
enhancing safety on the roads.
