Nepal – on top of the world?

Nepal - on top of the world?

'I started as a domestic worker when I was 10 years old. I had left my village because of poverty and the violent Maoist insurgency in Nepal which threatened my family. Since I started work, I have changed my employer four or five times in search of better conditions. One house owner treated me like a thief and if they went out, they would lock the doors and lock me out too. They would only give me leftover food to eat, old and dirty bed clothes to sleep on, and old clothes to wear. I had no day off at all, and in fact, during the first five years of my domestic work, I received no pay from any employer. At the beginning, I was not able to go to school either.'

This is a not untypical story of a domestic worker in Nepal: someone who cooks, cleans, washes, looks after the children of the household, for little or no pay and terrible conditions. Many domestic workers are children or young adults and a majority are women or girls. According to a report published in 2007, 99 per cent have been shouted at or beaten by an employer.

While many people only think of Nepal as a trekker's paradise, in fact Nepal is the poorest country in Asia and, being sandwiched between China and India, is buffeted by geopolitics on a grand scale.

This is the background to a new project that the TUC is supporting with NIDWU, the Nepal Independent Domestic Workers Union. This is a very new union, with 900 mostly young members, which is working to organise adult domestic workers, to empower them, and to help them to receive better pay and conditions.

NIDWU is well-supported by one of the Nepali trade union centres, GEFONT: the General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions and in February, the TUC visited and held a workshop to design a project to support domestic workers and to improve the political and legislative environment within which they work

The project will have several elements: campaigning at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and in Nepal to introduce a domestic workers convention; tackling domestic violence against domestic workers; and growing NIDWU, the new union. The officers of NIDWU are very young: the general secretary is 18, the finance secretary 19, and the president is 24, and with the support of GEFONT, they will build up the union and their own capacity.

Sonu Danuwar, the president of NIDWU said, 'I hope that this project will change the life of domestic workers, not just their working conditions but also their expectations and dreams for the future.'

Nepal is at a critical juncture in its political history. In 1990, democracy was introduced and a constitutional monarchy replaced the previous autocratic regime. However, instability in the country and especially in rural areas between the government and Maoists rebels led to the deaths of 13,000 people and few have been punished for the crimes committed on both sides during the conflict. In 2005-06, the king attempted to wrestle power back from the state, but society including the trade unions, fought back and the country is now a federal, democratic republic, albeit a fragile one.

Now Nepal is going through a constitution-writing process, something which will determine the future of Nepal. Binda Pandey is a member of the Constituent Assembly and is chairperson of the fundamental rights committee which is drafting sections of the constitution. She is also a former Deputy Secretary General of GEFONT.

'We hope the new constitution will be forward-thinking. We are talking about recognising not just men and women but also transgender people. For women, we are talking about equal inheritance rights and equal rights to property. We will also introduce economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to food and the right to employment. This will include the right to form trade unions, the right to organise, and the right to collectively bargain. And of course the right to strike - which is controversial and something political leaders are still discussing.'

'By having a clear definition of employment, we will be able to start to include informal sectors like domestic workers in official definitions of employment. This means that these workers will earn the right to be recognised as workers and the right to access social security payments and better terms and conditions.' With the Nepali economy made up of 90 per cent informal economy, such rights are really important.

'I am very sure that if I had not been chair of the committee, as a woman trade unionist, that we would not have been able to have the right to employment, the right to strike and the right to social security. I am very clear about that. It really makes a difference to be in the process and to be able to champion women's rights and citizenship rights.'

The new Nepali constitution could be really progressive with its emphasis on entrenching human rights in law. But this is also a time of great fragility for Nepal. Many people I spoke to talked of how people were losing allegiance to Nepal the country, and aligning themselves much more to their ethnic or religious identities. For centuries, many, many ethnic groups have peacefully co-existed in Nepal. A decline in faith in the nation state could seriously threaten the long term peace and stability of the country.

And there is another serious threat facing Nepal too. As I left Nepal, and flew over the Himalayas I was struck by the effects of climate change. The irony of looking at the impacts of climate change from a carbon-burning aeroplane did not escape me, but pilots who regularly fly over the mountains say how the amount of snow has been steadily declining. On Everest, the rock is more noticeable than the snow.

This is an issue of critical importance to Nepal and the rest of South Asia as the Himalayas provide water for the whole region and less glaciers and snow will mean less fresh water in the future.

Nepal really is on top of the world - but the next few years will be fundamental in determining whether the livelihoods of poor working people in Nepal will significantly improve and whether Nepal will be able to tackle the huge challenges with which it is faced.

Vicky Cann

February 2010