Posted on 01/11/2010 1:01:25 AM PST by nickcarraway
Durpati Nepali hides her face in shame as she recalls how she was forced to return to work as a prostitute after her husband was killed during Nepal's 10-year civil war. The 35-year-old mother of five says she resorted to prostitution -- an occupation she first took up aged just 14 -- in desperation after the food stall she set up failed because customers were abusive and refused to pay. Nepali was victimised because she is a Badi, a caste of so-called "untouchables" living mainly in western Nepal whose women have traditionally earned their living as sex workers.
Once high-class courtesans and musicians, the Badi are now among the poorest and most downtrodden groups in Nepal, where discrimination on caste grounds remains rife despite being outlawed more than four decades ago. Many are disadvantaged from birth because they carry the surname Nepali, often used on the birth certificates of children where paternity is unclear, making them vulnerable to persecution.
"When my husband died, I had no option but to go back into prostitution to feed my family," said Nepali, whose husband died eight years ago, a victim of the civil conflict that ended in 2006.
"Even when I wasn't working as a prostitute, people treated me like one. But it has brought many problems," she told AFP in her tiny mud hut in the village of Bankhet in mid-western Nepal.
"Last month, more than 20 villagers came and threatened to burn down our home if we did not leave the village."
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Very sad!
Of all people, blacks in America should have a symbiotic relationship and comprehension about this and other abuses.
Banker's bailouts, confiscation of GM, the (taxing) robbing of America, climate change and "health care reform" have all been the focus of this evil and socialist government.
America was high-jacked and we MUST be the Lone Ranger's of our time and rescue the fair damsel (Lady Liberty)
She’s a member of an untouchable caste yet is a prositute?
Wait... What?...
Just another example of third world values...
Embrace Diversity!
Or maybe the article is just written by a member of Agence France Presse, and the author doesnt know what the hell she is yapping about (as usual).
Or maybe in this instance she does. Untouchables “who are literally “outcastes,” without a varna, and were regarded as “untouchable” because they are ritually polluting for caste Hindus”.
Untouchables have their own traditional professions and their own subcastes. Those professions (unless they can be evaded in the greater social mobility of modern, urban, anonymous life) involve too much pollution to be performed by caste Hindus: (1) dealing with the bodies of dead animals (like the sacred cattle that wander Indian villages) or unclaimed dead humans, (2) tanning leather, from such dead animals, and manufacturing leather goods, and (3) cleaning up the human and animal waste for which in traditional villages there is no sewer system (with their bare hands).
Their children are often indentured for loans the family will never be able to pay off and girls sometimes become ‘temple prostitutes’.
http://www.friesian.com/caste.htm
As a matter of fact, Ive visited India and Nepal, and I havent seen any such thing, at least in the cities. I asked folks out there about it, and noone seems to care about caste, theyre just too busy getting on with their lives. In fact, Im afraid they seem to have some sort of compulsory affirmative action, with 50% of all jobs and college places going to the so called lower castes.
I have Indian friends, and while I have not traveled there, I am told the cities (which constitute a small part of India) are set up not to upset Western sensibilities.
Because of India’s version of PC and affirmative action, the caste system is not so ‘in your face’ in the cities although it it still alive and well.
There is a reason why India is called a land of great contrasts; women are still beaten, tortured, and burned as witches in the countryside. Dalits (untouchables) still pick up human and animal waste by hand. Women of lighter skin are still preferred in marriage. Someone from the US is not likely to see that darker side of cultural diversity.
If they are “untouchable”, how can they be prostitutes? Or is there something that i am too old to understand?
Now that she's not, she's back 'down'.
Again, according to the article ... she's being harassed into doing something to survive and prostitution is apparently all there is.
Wow... If you haven’t been there, and you have formed so powerfully negative an opinion already, then I hope you will forgive me if I direct you to the following verbiage:
Prejudice:
–noun
1. An unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.
2. Any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable.
3. Unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, esp. of a hostile nature, regarding a racial, religious, or national group.
Not prejudice, just looking at a reality described to me by people who were in a position to know.
I have gotten some very interesting info about living in Russia under socialism, Cuba under Castro, and Poland as a soviet satellite in the same way.
You on one hand admit to only seeing cities, and on the other label a description of living very differently outside the cities as prejudice.
I, as I say, have indeed visited the cities. You, on the other hand have not. I say that the Indian cities are too chaotic, busy, and self absorbed to be bothered with being set up for offending/not offending western sensibilities, and I think I got a pretty good feel for the country.
Honestly, the whole “not offending western sensibilities” deal is more of a Chinese concept (I’ve been there too, and I’ve seen a lot of that over there), than an Indian one.
The average Indian neither knows, nor cares what the average Westerner thinks of him, and if informed, while he/she might be curious, and want to please a visitor (hospitality), theyre really too busy living their own lives to be bothered about much else.
My opinion: Caste is not such an issue in India (or Nepal) anymore, except for the fact that there is an affirmative action government mandated “reservation” quota in India, for lower castes for everything. Jobs, Education, Train Tickets, parliamentary seats, and goodness knows what else. I dont think that that sort of affirmative action is necessarily a good thing, and I certainly wouldnt want it here, but I do know that a lot of western thought about India is mired in centuries old colonial propaganda, which is unjustified.
After all, the Indian civilization is an ancient one, and any ancient culture has its dark periods. It is how it revives from them that darkness which is interesting, not a constant and rote learned repetition of the cultures failings.
Just as it is ridiculous to base one’s assumption about Italy, on the basis of Slavery in Rome, human sacrifices, the Inquisition, the Dark ages, etc etc, I think (from my experience), that casteism is a thing of the past in Modern India, and it is odd to color one’s view of that civilization through a centuries old taint, especially without first going there to look for yourself.
Just my humble opinion.
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