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| Bishwa Nath Ghimire, and his son Umanga |
Nepal is patriarchal society and one of the world's less developed nation, like any other less develop country, child rights advocacy is lagging despite of the society's effort to advance it. Socio-cultural factors and poverty remains an issue, early child marriage, gender disparity and child labour are just some of it. In a male dominated society, we will rarely find men doing child rights advocacy, but I meet few of these men, but among the few, only a gem of them have the passion in their works, most of them are there for monetary reason only that despite of the effort to advance child rights in a patriachial society it is dragging due to the lack of passion. However, a very young promising Nepali father, who comes from well respected clan in Lamjung, Nepal is doing it differently. Bishwa Nath Ghimire, coming from a Brahmin family always does it with passion. He has vision for his country that is totally hampered development is due to so many social-cultural factors. Currently, working for World Vision International - Nepal as field education specialist in the Central Office, he devotes his free time doing community work and his family. Below is the excerpt of the interview about the state of chill right in Nepal as well as his stands on it.
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| He cross river and climb mountains but never get tired of his advocacy, even along the way he stops and talks with children. |
First of all thank you obviously for your time. what
are you trying to accomplish as a child
right advocates and why you choose this advocacy especially in this very
patriarchal society Nepali society? Thank you a lot
for providing me an opportunity to share my ideas, knowledge and experiences.
At present I am trying to have such a society competent with child protection
mechanism. I have chosen this advocacy as I had gained different knowledge
about child rights from my school life. I used to actively participate in
different activities related to child rights and I was tempted to work on child
right related issues. However this is patriarchal Nepali society, still there
is the discrimination even to their children in terms of gender. I am
struggling to minimize this through my advocacy with mother's group, child
clubs, father's group, and political leaders as well as different stakeholders.
As I know development is a long process but the concept of the people cannot be
change easily but I am hopeful in future days that we will have such utopian
society.
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What kind of a sense have you been able to get
so far in terms of how severe the crisis of children right in Nepal and what
actually needs to be done to help out? As being developing country there are many
socio political crisis in the field of child right. Some of the issues are
traditionally going on and some of the issues are changed with the emerging
technology. Here are the problems of identity issues of newly born babies if
the baby is born after unidentified father. For this I have fought a lot to get
the citizenship of one child but he was not allowed to get such citizenship
unless his father is identified as his mother was deaf and dumb and she could
not tell who her husband was. Here is discrimination for children in terms of
gender, caste, disability. There are school dropout children as well as out of
school children. Child labour is another issue. In some villages child marriage
is taking place. Beside this due to technology drug addiction is also emerging.
Due to political influence the people who are engaged in child abuse are freely
working as they pressurized the victim and some time they tempt by offering
good job or money. Child trafficking and
organ selling of children is another issue in Nepal. As you know Nepal has been
engaged in civil war and the children
affected from conflict are not properly addressed and being open boarders many Indians come to Nepal with their children and
they are earning money with their parents and they are deprived of getting
education. Due to hand mouth problem there are some children who are working in
sex market and they are sexually and physically exploited. There are some children
who are engaged in domestic labour too. Government of Nepal has granted
abortion of child but people are identifying children and doing abortion in
terms of gender. So intensive planning
for the children is needed. As federal system is gradually being implemented
hence we should encourage government bodies to open child care home in each
municipality and rural municipality. There must be counselling center in each
state and district where children who involve in addiction and other serious
issues can be kept there. Social
security amount for unidentified children, disable children should be granted.
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Do you think that the global community has a
responsibility to address that? Obviously it is the global responsibility
as there are some cross boarder issues as Nepali children are sold in Indian
market for circus and even they are sold in other countries for their organ
transplant. Being developing country, Nepal has mainly focused in providing
basic infrastructure and child right issue is in shadow so for creating
awareness, providing fund and developing such core programme to reach
vulnerable children is the support needed from the global community.
· What would the message that you would want to
carry out in Nepal or even the message that you would want to get out
internationally in terms of what's happening about children rights in Nepal and how serious it is and the
consequences that could happen in the future if it's not properly addressed? Nepal is gradually working on child rights.
Child Friendly Local Governance is being practiced but its only working on
policy level too. But this is limited in policy level only. Many villages are
declared with Child Friendly but after declaration there is no follow up being
done. Nepal has granted the abortion for unwanted baby but in terms of gender
people are trying to abort the child and it is being secretly so this must be
another issues to be raised outside of the world. Many children are without
citizenship as there parents are unidentified and in Nepal unless we have
citizenship we are not allowed to work anywhere so my advocacy can be for
granting them the identity. For this right based approach must be done.
· On a personal level why is this so important to
you ... you willing to risk your life for this advocacy? The constitution of Nepal has clearly
mentioned that any child born inside Nepal and the children who are
unidentified but are in Nepal are the children of Nepal but the government is
not easily giving the citizenship. To get citizenship they must show their
father and mother. Here is the contradiction between the policy and
practicality. Hence I am eventually working for this with some organizations to
raise voice against this.
· Do you think that you in your position right now
working for a globally recognized and influential organization you can try to
push this process forward put ... pressure perhaps on the
Nepali
government to push for stricter implementation of the children rights? Definitely our organization is working on
child right issues. Last year our organization conducted one campaign It Takes
Nepal to End Child Marriage and it was inaugurated by the president of Nepal.
It brought positive vibes within the organization as well as in the community. World
Vision Nepal has its project for child protection. We are working for child
rights and birth registration and other issues are taken seriously and we are
doing advocacy in the local and national level and we are hopeful that we can
bring child wellbeing. Being child focused organization we are trying to have
the life in all its fullness of the children.
On fatherhood, how central are fathers to
childhood development and child education? In a family father and mother both are
responsible to rear a child. Many fathers seem very submissive rather than
mother. But I think every father has higher duties to perform especially to
foster good habit to the children. In Nepalese society mostly fathers are not
being responsible to their children as the children's personal hygiene is
looked after by mother. She has to feed, bath and look after the baby. But
father can support in the family. Being the era of knowledge transformation,
hence father can assimilate with his wife and he can look after the baby doing
household chores. Even peer reading to the baby can be much influential.
Do fathers have a different impact depending on
the gender of the child? How it will be if you have a girl child? I am totally disagree with this opinion as
father is like god and he can not differentiate his children. There are 5
fingers in a hand but they may be long or short and they have their value and
importance like in the same way whatever he has either son or daughter he
should love them. As I have my son, I am very happy with him but if my baby was
daughter I should have loved her like him. Still there are some people with
traditional perspectives of their children and many parents will go on giving
birth to the babies as they wish baby son. But if I have a girl child I would
treat her equally like my son.
On the lighter note, how do you spend quality time to your child considering your workload when
this is suppose to be the time that you be a great influence to your
child?I am not able to spend my quality
time with my family but whenever I will be at home my boy wander around me. He
follows me even in the toilet too. I spend most of the time interacting with
him. I always encourage him to do new best things and he dazzles me with his
works too. During evening time I take him to the neighbor hood so that he could
learn things from others. We play together. He is 3 and half years old. I
encourage him to sing, dance and tell stories himself. He dances and sings
Nepali folk songs. During bed time, he is fond of bedtime stories and I always
tell him one story and he starts to make his own stories in his way. Always I
try to be exemplary character in front of him. Bed time is the best time to
influence my boy as I have sufficient time to concentrate him on my moral
stories.
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| Enjoying quality time with his son, a rare Nepali father's practice. |
What does your experience show about the impact
of a father's state of mind on the development of the child?Father has greater responsibility to rear
his child. He can foster good discipline and he can make his children more
responsible by showing his good character. I have seen many fathers smoking and
drinking in front of child, if they do it, it will affect the children
psychologically. Children can be shaped as we like and if we are working for
them we have to spend our time with them.
Do you believe on partnership parenting, of
course there is an exception to those who are single parents?Definitely I believe on partnership of
parenting. As there are many parents who are not able to bear a child and they
may have the feeling of parenthood but they may be deprived of loving of
children. Hence, if we have child, they are the platform to be loved by
everyone as I believe that loving a child by all can be on the shared basis but
it is as a whole. Love cannot be divided but love is the matter to be shared.
In my organization there are many sponsors and they are like father and mother
of Nepali children even they have not seen each other. So, partnership in
parenting is not the matter to be measured but the thing is how the parents
love their children is greater thing.
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| Bishwa, and his young family. |
On personal note, what are the joys of
fatherhood that you can share to a very
patriarchal society ? It will be funny in the Nepali society to
wash the clothes of baby, taking bath to the baby and massaging them by a
father but I do all the things. As a result my boy loves me much. In our Nepali
context there generation gap between father and son but in my family it is not
such. Me and my father as well as me and my son are equally have strong bond.
It is joyful to see the progress of children and noticing them their best
habits growing gradually.
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| Even in his spare time, he does community volunteering work to advance children rights. |
