NEPAL: Female labourers demand equal pay

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

CHITWAN, 11 Jul 2006 (IRIN) - Female labourers in Nepal are angry that they continue to be discriminated against in terms of pay and a group have gone to the capital, Kathmandu, to take legal action against the government.

Kanchi Lama works eight hours a day at a construction site in the village of Madi in Chitwan district, 100 km southeast of the capital. She toils carrying bricks and is expected to work as hard as the men who labour alongside her. But come pay day, she gets just half a male wage.

This is the reality for millions of Nepalese women manual labourers on construction sites, quarries, brick kilns, farms and other informal employment sectors where employers often discriminate, women’s groups say.

“For a long time, women have had to endure the injustice of being paid much less than men for exactly the same work,” said activist Bishnu Maya Pande from the Womens’ Labour Advocacy Group, a local NGO that has been organising a series of campaigns to highlight the discrepancy.

“We will not stop our campaigns until justice is done,” said Sapana Bhandari, one of a group of female labourers who have been in Kathmandu for nearly a month. They are filing a case at the Supreme Court against the government, in order to end the discrimination.

According to the group, the minimum wage for men has been set at the local equivalent of US $2 for a day’s work but that women receive a maximum of $1.50 for the same hours and quantity of work.

The new interim government said it supported equal pay for women.

"The government is against discriminating against women in any form and if there is a need for a new law to support an equal wage, it is ready to do it," said Basudeb Upreti, a legal officer in the Ministry of Women.

“When we win this case, women will have the power to fight a legal battle against their discriminatory employers,” explained Bhandari. She and her colleagues plan to stage a series of protests in front of the Nepalese parliament if their legal action is not successful.

“Our present constitution has several laws protecting womens’s rights and promoting gender equality but there is still no law that gives a female worker the right to equal pay,” said activist Goma Acharya, who is part of the group bringing the matter to the Supreme Court.

[ENDS]