I found it strange that widows in Nepal had been singled out for persecution and discrimination by their families and communities. After all, they’d lost their husbands through no fault of their own, but yet there was said to be a deep seated suspicion of widows as they were regarded as ‘bad omens’. We’d heard that widows, some whom were still children, were treated as social pariahs. Although previously they were expected to shave their heads, today they still had to follow restrictive mourning rituals, and accept their fate as outcasts.
My director Katherine Churcher and I arrived in Nepal during its hot and humid monsoon season, and started our journey in the low-lying south-eastern region of the Terai, as we’d heard that child marriage was prevalent there. I was shocked to meet a little girl aged 13, called Gita, who was widowed before she’d even hit her teens. Her story symbolised the tragedy of a girl’s life crushed into servitude simply because she’s a widow. It was hard to see another child widow, Bobita, trapped in a life where, at 14, she’s pathetically resigned to living in limbo, waiting for her young son to rescue her.
An influential Hindu priest enlightened us about the entrenched disdain and distrust that exists for child widows. Many believe these young girls did something so horrific in their past lives that they are damned to a miserable and cursed life as a child widow in this one.
In the west of the country, in the Surkhet valley, we met widows who were the result of Nepal’s 10-year-long civil war, and they too are regarded as pariahs, despite being victims of war.
We thought that perhaps those in the cosmopolitan capital of Kathmandu would be treated more favourably, but found ourselves perturbed when we met a widow, Manu, who has had to go to the tragic extent of living her life as if she were dead. It was difficult to come to terms with her pitiful story - she had been forced to do the unthinkable and put her children in an orphanage so they could survive.
Although I have visited many patriarchal societies and understood the consequences that flow from them for women, it was bizarre that widows in particular should be so cursed, until it became apparent that, in Nepal, marriage was fundamental in giving women status in society. In the capital I could spot married women at a second’s glance - they walked with confidence, with their heads held high, whereas widows, who are forbidden to dress in bright colours, appeared as pathetic, insecure lowly figures, to be hidden away from public view./
I was inspired by those who were trying to assert their human rights by marching on the capital in a remarkable, unprecedented protest against the government’s policy of paying men to marry them. But, it was clear that they had a serious battle on their hands when the Minister responsible for the policy told me there were no plans to withdraw it.
I wondered what it would take for widows to be given the proper respect and recognition they deserved, because to all intents and purposes, in today’s Nepal, they are sentenced to the life of a 21st century Sati. In the past, a Sati committed suicide by throwing herself on her husband’s funeral pyre, but today she exists as a tortured creature - physically alive but socially dead.
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