Nepali women are indelibly an important pillar in accelerating the country’s socioeconomic growth. Once confined to their homes, their roles today know no boundaries. In this series of photographs from their travels across the country, Sanyukta Shrestha and Bibek Bhandari have tried to put spotlight on #WomenOfNepal , celebrating the countless facets of the female force that shape up new Nepal.#WomenOfNepal to share your photos and stories.
Charimaya Tamang is one of the most inspiring women I have had a chance to interview. She was sold to an Indian brothel when she was 16 and forced to sex slavery for 22 months. After being rescued in 1996, despite stigma and discrimination from the state and society, Tamang fought back. The same year, in a landmark case, she sued her traffickers, and also won the case. "I didn't do this as a revenge,” she said. “I though these men would easily target many other women in vulnerable situation. If they were prosecuted, I would actually be saving a number of other women from being sold. They wouldn’t be where I was once. "If I had remained silent, I would have just become another victim. By speaking up, I decided to take action and stop the traffickers. People who commit crimes should be held accountable and getting them prosecuted is the first step toward combating the crime. Today, my traffickers are still in jail and they should realise that it’s a heinous crime. No one should ever be trafficked and sold.” It’s been almost two decades that Tamang has been actively working to raise awareness and fight human trafficking and sex slavery through her non-profit Shakti Samuha. Five of the many survivors who were rescued from India in 1996 formed the organisation. Tamang has been awarded with numerous awards for her work, including the Hero Acting to End Modern Day Slavery by the US government, and Shakti Samuha won 2013’s Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize. “When we started, the authorities resisted to register our organisation for four years. They thought we were weak and lacked skills to run an NGO. But here we are today globally recognised. “These awards are a recognition – before we were not even considered as humans. These awards not only highlight human trafficking in Nepal, but also acknowledge the ongoing efforts to combat this problem. For survivors like us, it is also a motivation to continue working for our cause – it makes us feel that the world cares about our issues and us. We are committed to fight until the end.” #CharimayaTamang #Nepal #endslavery #humantrafficking #trafficking #women #womenofnepal #respect #hero
A photo posted by Bibek Bhandari (@bibek_bhandari) on Oct 9, 2015 at 9:48pm PDT
Jyoti Thapa was born male and now identifies as third-gender. Thapa says she has always felt like a woman. "When people suddenly saw me dressed as a woman, they were shocked," says Thapa, dressed in blue jeans and a pink top, her hair pulled back. "They called me crazy and told me to check into a hospital." But her family was supportive. Her elder brother (a retired army man), her father, and other family members have accepted her new identity. Thapa is treated like the youngest daughter of the family. Her village has embraced her, too; after she spoke in front of a large crowd to explain her identity and issues of LGBTI rights and equality, people began accepting her. "It's taken four years," she says, recalling her coming out in 2008 in a transgender beauty contest. "Some people still think it's strange, but I'm happy." Nepal is the only country in South Asia that has enshrined the rights of sexual minorities in its new constitution that was promulgated in September. In 2007 Nepal's Supreme Court ordered the government to scrap all laws that discriminated against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity, ensuring equality for the country's LGBTI population. Nepal is also among the few countries that grants its citizens citizenships and passports where they can identify themselves other than male and female. However, in a society still divided by caste and ethnic identity, a discourse on sexual identity seems to be less of a priority. Despite official recognition and a lenient social attitude, family pressure and social expectations still prevent most people from coming out fearing discrimination. For full story, a part of my graduate school project in 2012: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1694277 #nepal #lgbt #transgender #women #womenofnepal #lgbtrights
A photo posted by Bibek Bhandari (@bibek_bhandari) on Oct 8, 2015 at 9:52pm PDT
Remember! You can also be a part of the conversation on Instagram: use the hashtag #WomenOfNepal to share your photos and stories.
Photos by Bibek Bhandari Sanyukta Shrestha Follow Bibek on instagram here .here .
