A Cyber Magazine To Develop Terai & Nepal As Well

Girl Child in Tarai

-Dr. R.D. Rakesh

Terai state of Nepal is plain, flat and fertile. It ranges from 300-1, 500m. And is tropical subtropical in climate. It is thickly populated by diverse and different ethnic groups. The population pressure is increasing day by day. The family planning program has not been very successful because Terain people want to have a boy child. So, unless they have a boy child, they will not accept birth-control. In this process they can have numerous girl children. They do not care how they will educate and support them. Truly speaking they do not like to have a girl child at all. A girl child becomes an object of pity as soon as she is born in a family in Terai. This scene can be seen in the after-birth ceremony of Chhathiar (Naming ceremony) which takes place after six days. Everybody rejoices and congratulations the parents on this occasion of a boy’s birthday but nobody bother to do so when a girl child is born. There is a common saying among Terains that if a girl is born, the earth sinks by one inch while it rises up one inch if a boy is born. A boy child is considered as a gazetted officer and old age insurance. He is also regarded as a suitable means for spiritual salvation after death. He can be a helping hand in the family in the long run.

If a girl child is born, it is considered as a course. Sometimes some unscrupulous people bury the child alive. On the one hand it is very expensive to educate and support her and on the other it is very expensive and sometimes impossible to get her married due to the heavy dowry system prevailing in the society of Terai. Bride burning and dowry deaths are not so frequent as in the neighboring country, India but a girl child is subject to torture in almost all families if her parents do not spend lavishly on her marriage. Thus the plight of a girl child is very pitiable in Terai.

Personality of a girl

The personality of a girl child is not developed fully due to veil system. She is not supposed to mix freely with her contemporary companions especially with boys. So she becomes shy and frightened. She is also not allowed to go to school like boys. So she remains illiterate and uneducated. Less than four in ten girls receive any schooling. Of the six in every ten children who enroll in primary school only two will continue their primary education. Consequently her personality gets stultified. She keeps a low profile and will never get a chance to become smart and energetic. She also fails to adjust herself to adverse circumstances. She is bound to become the slave of circumstances. She is supposed to remain confined within the four walls of either her parent’s house or her inlay’s house. Thus she can not speak face to face or express her desires on an equal par to her superiors. Sometimes she is not supposed to speak even with her husband during the daytime. Child marriage is customary in the Terai state. Imagine the plight of a girl child who is not educated well and matured enough but is compelled to marry at a young age. She becomes an immature mother. She gives birth to many children and so her health gets a breakdown. Sometimes she dies in course of her delivery. So she cannot develop her personality for all these reasons. One of her misfortunes is child-marriage. In some cases she may be educated and she can protest other parents or in-laws but in the long run she is either compelled it surrender or to reconcile herself to her circumstances. If she is not married earlier, she will marry in her later age. If her parents have given a lot of dowry in cash or in kind, there will be no complaint from her in-law’s side but in many cases her in laws will bear a grudge against his parents and she is forced to bring more money from her parent’s house failing which she may be subjected to more misery and torture. Sometimes she is beaten to death; sometimes she burnt alive with kerosene oil or is poured on with petrol and set ablaze. Everyday we read in the headlines of news papers-

‘Girl child kills herself’
‘Girl child burns herself’
‘Girl child hangs herself’.

They cannot raise their voice against those who injure them or exploit them. What is more, among nearly one is three of all Terain infants (up to the age of one year) death takes places in the first week of birth.

She is beaten, bruised, attacked, assaulted strangled, burnt and hacked. She is killed within the four walls of her house where she has no say, no way to protect herself from her killers. If she is lucky enough to survive these sad events, her conjugal life becomes so miserable that she cannot live with her husband or with his family. She cannot even get divorce legally because she is not educated. She is bound to lead her life within the four walls of her house. She cannot go out at her sweet will because chances are she may fall into still another unforeseeable trouble. In many families it is seen that if a girl child fall ill nobody cares for her treatment. Everybody thinks that is she dies for want of proper treatment her husband can marry another girl and he will get dowry again. Sometimes treatment is so expensive that nobody dares spend money on this item. This way a girl child is neglected in every respect. A girl child is married early because it is thought that the older their daughter grows, the older her husband must be. It is difficult for an aged girl to get an educated husband. That’s why their parents have to pay more. Many of them want to have grand children soon who will prove to be so many helping hands in their households but they do not know the evils of early marriage. They just want to perform their duty because a girl child is often treated as an unwanted person in the family. She is expected it help her mother in household tasks from her early childhood. Thus, a girl child’s first encounter with the world around her begins with the realization that she is useless. Her life is meaningless. She is of little help and value to her parents or other family members.

Therefore it is crystal clear that the plight of the gild child is closely associated with the socio-economic condition of the country. Childs labour is the burning problem of the day. Girls are forced to spend most if the time in fetching firewood from the nearby forest and in taking care of domestic animals like goats and cows.

Education of Girls in Terai

Education is given low priority. Education for girl child is looked upon as unnecessary so that she is not expected to receive even primary education.

Further more it is considered that education will be of no use to a girl child in her advanced age because her activities are confined within the four walls of her house. She is also not supposed to deal with outsiders, so education is not useful and suitable to her. Her education is also hampered by the fact that educated girls have to be married off with more educated boys and this is very costly affair in Terai. It is also experienced that perhaps the most difficult challenge of the 1990s is the task of providing a basic education which is at least enough to attain literacy for all the world’s children. As a result of the debt crisis and the consequent cutbacks in spending on health and education services the percentage of children enrolled in school has actually fallen in at least half of the developing nations during the 1980s. Most of the guardians of the girl child think it is useless to spend on her education and proper upbringing. They think that all girl children have to leave their houses one day after marriage. So they do not find any value in terms of return for the investment they make in providing education to them. They are however, trained for needle work, food preparation and other kinds of household work. The girl child of even a well-to-do family is deprived of good education and good quality of life. She may be given more elementary education privately at home. If she knows how to write a letter, it is understood that it is sufficient for her to express herself in a difficult time or whenever she needs to do so. Such a type of girl-child does not know how to adjust herself in highly educated family. Such is the plight of an average girl child in the Terai and she is brought up in a wretched environment. Therefore a girl child thinks psychologically that she is inferior to any other members of the family. The investment on education in Nepal among the lowest in comparison to that in other developing countries that is 2% of the gross national product.