Moral policing in Nepal
Don’t chase society’s expectations, chase your potential: NRM M...
The youth in Nepal, like their peers in the rest of the world, love to have sex. A 2006 survey covering male college-going students from 67 districts found that more than 40 percent respondents had had sex before the age of 19. In a similar survey of women in 2011, 40 percent responders under 18 and 58 percent women aged 20-24 reported having sexual intercourse. If that is not promiscuous enough for the prudes, more recent data from Nepal Demographic and Living Survey (2011) suggest the age of consensual sex continues to fall. The question is: Can the government keep the surging libido of our youngsters in check? It surely does try. Back in February, police raided various hotels in Chitwan and arrested 49 individuals for 'illicit sex'. Many of them were later found to be married couples. Similar raids have taken place in Kathmandu's hotels at various times to keep the society to the straight and narrow. But why stop at dictating what people can do in their bedrooms? Surely there must be a strict dress code to keep our women from dressing like cheap tarts!
Last Thursday, a woman was stopped from entering Kathmandu District Court at Maitighar because she was dressed 'indecently', i.e. in a knee-length skirt. Tired of arguing with the guards, she was allowed in only after she agreed to wrap herself in a shawl. Following Thursday's incident, other women who have been denied entrance to the district court have come out. Many of them were barred from entering even though they were in their official work-dress. Sometimes even men find themselves on the wrong side of the law. In the past journalists have been evicted from Supreme Court premises for dressing 'informally'. This kind of arbitrary rule-making is emblematic of repressive regimes: Saudi Arabia, for instance, prohibits women from driving and leaving home without a male consort. Their women must also be fully covered in public at all times.If Saudi Arabia is the role model for Nepali officials, we have nothing to say. But please, stop cloaking these publicity stunts in the guise of 'public interest'. The vast majority of Nepalis (median age 21.6 years) are capable of looking after their own interests. Moreover, this kind of clampdown on open discussion of sex often backfires. There is now conclusive proof that youngsters who have right information on safe sex and who can openly discuss matters of sex with their family and friends choose to delay their first sexual encounter: they prefer to wait till their body matures. But in puritanical societies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the youngsters are deprived of such vital sex education and often turn to porn and other unreliable surrogates. Repression also breeds curiosity; there is a reason Pakistan is the biggest per capita consumer of porn in the world. What we need in Nepal is a more open discussion of sex, in our schools, colleges, media, homes, and, it appears, in our courts. Court officials who argue that 'revealing' dress on women is 'distraction' for honorable judges should be made to sit for Sex 101—the classes taken by the better-informed Nepali teenagers who rightly pride themselves as cosmopolitan citizens of the 21st century.
