Nepali women’s water woes in general
Out of Nepal’s 75 districts, Mugu in Karnali is listed last in the human development index. Its natural beauty, including the Rara Lake, is admirable. However, one also finds extreme poverty and hardship that the villagers face.
In April 2011, I visited Mugu for the first time with foreign colleagues. We reached Rugha Village Development Community (VDC). Here, one can see the difficult life of the villagers. We had a talk with a woman from the Dalit community who described her various problems in her life.[break]
"This is hell, not Mugu," she said. "We die even of common and curable diseases because we don´t have medical facilities here. Sometimes we even feel we’re living in a desert when we face water shortage. Who said Nepal is the second richest country in the world in water resources?"
People come here with many programs for sanitation and health but they don’t last long since there’s no water. How can medicines work if there are no basic amenities like water? In fact, the first chore of the day that women are expected to do is to fetch water to wash utensils, make tea and cook food. Women in Rugha’s Ward 4 always worry about how to get water and that’s no exception in entire Mugu, either.
Women carry water jars on their waists and on their heads and walk a long way down to the Karnali River. This is hard work and causes adverse health issues. In summer, the river is contaminated by rain and flood. A woman has lost three children out of seven due to diarrhea after drinking contaminated river water. Yet she doesn’t have any other option for availing water. Taking two hours back and forth to fetch water from the river, walking on slopes and rough paths with jars filled with water, she spends altogether 18 hours a day on housework. There’s no respite even during pregnancy.
An 80-year-old woman said she has spent her entire life thinking about getting water from the river more easily. But it hasn’t happened. She even lost her child in the Karnali by drowning while playing. Her husband went to India looking for work while she looked after her children. She always found it difficult to go to the river for water everyday. She never rested even when she was sick or pregnant.
"The problems I faced are being faced by my daughter and daughter-in-law now. This is very intolerable for me." She then asked me to bring water for her village. "I’ll bless you if you do but curse you for false promises."
The villagers are mostly engaged in agriculture in an environment of high temperatures but a shortage of drinking water. Spending so much time to get water for various purposes all day long, women are physically and mentally under pressure. They often suffer from anxiety, stress, lightheadedness, vomiting and vertigo after walking hours with gallons of water on empty stomach.
Dalit women’s water woes in far western region
Similar problems – but more acute ones – are faced by the Dalit women of Nepal. For instance, in Koteli Village’s Ward No 5 in Dadeldhura District, they have been facing a shortage of drinking water for the past 16 years simply because they are Dalits. In 1995, the government installed a safe drinking water supply scheme in Koteli’s Wards 4, 5 and 7 where both upper-caste Brahmin and Dalit communities are located.
There are around 100 Dalit households in Ward No. 5. The administration installed water pipes and taps for all villagers. But the non-Dalit community blocked water supply to the Dalit household taps. When they filed their complaint to the district drinking water office, nobody listened to them. Hence, they have to go to another village to fetch water, taking more than five hours and causing adverse health problems for them. They carry 25-30 liters of water. This also results in delays in sending children to school. They also suffer from different types of diseases. This daily discriminatory practice against the Dalits, which also causes water scarcity in farming, also harms their food production.
Water first! – Mid-east Nepal
Palpa District is one of the most well-known tourist destinations. Located on the way to Lumbini, the Buddha´s birthplace, one can see foreigners enjoying Nepali culture and nature. Yet women living here suffer from lack of water. Upland villages like Vuwan Pokhari are worst off. The villagers produce maize and millet on their dry slopes with which people feed themselves for only four months, and the men usually migrate to India or other districts of Nepal for the rest of the year to earn money. Women and children are left behind.
In Vuwan Pokhari’s Ward No 9, 75 Dalit households have been here for generations. Here, one sees two big jars placed in front of almost every household to store rainwater. This scheme was financially supported by Friend Nepal to provide two jars to each house. There is a pipe to connect the jar to the roof to collect water in the rainy season. If a family wants to have more than two jars, they have to pay the full costs. There’s no other water supply in the village. Though the jars look beautiful and unique, it’s a symbol of water scarcity and the pain of the village.
When we arrived there, all the villagers shouted at once, "Give us water first!"
What if rain doesn´t fall? April is dry and there was no water in the jars when we visited the village. Thus, it’s a huge burden for women. They must go down to fetch water from the well by the roadside, which usually takes one hour. Though the road was constructed in the village five years ago to connect it to other villages, it is narrow, steep, stony and dusty.
Sukmaya Pariyar of the village said, "If there’s any social function like marriage ceremony or funeral in the community, every household has to collect a jar of water for the event. After we wash dishes and cloths, we reuse water for our domestic animals and vegetables farming."
There’s a belief in Nepal that while carrying water, a woman shouldn’t stop walking because if she did to take a rest, the water would get impure. This custom makes it even more difficult for women who have to carry heavy loads of water for more than one hour without taking a break.
Sobhi Pahadi, a woman of 75, seemed to be in charge of all the rituals in the village. She’s the oldest woman who prays for all the villagers, according to Hindu tradition. She even gave big warm hugs to the visitors. She’s proud of her son, Constituent Assembly Member Binod Pahadi. She’s been living in the village since she was 13 when she married her husband who was then in the army. She has her own water memories. She also went down to fetch water, which was enough for her family in those days. But many women now queue for water at the same well because there isn’t enough water for all at the same time. Due to road construction near the well, the source of water seems to have been blocked by dust and soil. Her son has tried to initiate a safe drinking water scheme in the village but the outcome is uncertain.
Caste-based discrimination: Denying access to safe drinking water
If people in general, just to wash their hands and clean themselves, have to walk more than one hour to the water source, how can they maintain their health and sanitation?
In Nepali villages, moreover, though water resources are common issues for everyone, it’s the Dalit communities who find it particularly difficult to access water. Residential areas are separated between Dalits and non-Dalits, or the so-called upper castes. In general, upper caste communities are located in lowland areas where more resources are available or easily accessible. Due to Hindu traditional practices which cause social caste-based discrimination, Dalits are often denied access to water resources in the villages.
The same situation prevails in Vuwan Pokhari as well where Dalits live in the upland and the so called upper-caste communities reside in the lowland with easier accessibility to various resources, including water and farmland.
As it is, women are responsible for house chores and childcare in Nepal while experiencing chronic discrimination and difficulties. Even more damaging to Dalits is the erroneous belief that they are impure by birth, and this aggravates the lives of Dalit women even more adversely. Further, with limited water resources, it’s natural that they use less water for washing and bathing than others, which has been a practice among Dalits.
At the national level, more than it being a matter of budget and manpower, it’s the legal issue of access, control and ownership of local resources, utilization and equal sharing of it without any de facto discrimination.
For example, in the Dadeldhura case, the government provided a pipeline and tap for Dalits but the so called upper castes don’t allow Dalits to use it. The government has failed to intervene to prevent this or eliminate the deep-rooted caste-based discrimination. The government believes that their duty doesn’t extend beyond providing resources or facilities.
It’s indeed more important to change orthodox practices committed by and prevalent among different Nepali castes, and the government should prioritize the issues related to fundamental rights. Needless to say, one’s right of access to safe drinking water is one of the fundamental rights to enjoy the right to life with dignity as a human being. For fairness, it should be respected by efficient policies and implementation, which will be promoted by the active and collective participation of the Dalit communities in the process of plans and enforcement. However, though participation is the basic element of democracy and equality, the case studies in Mugu, Dadeldhura, and Palpa, as narrated above, expose the lack of participation of the regions’ Dalit communities. They are still shouting “Give us water!” but no national, regional and international agencies and I/NGOs – the participatory numbers of which are so numerous in Nepal – have paid adequate and equitable attention to the cry.
The writer is with Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN)-Nepal as program officer.
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