Four Weddings and Four Funerals

The Nepalese government has stirred up a hornet’s nest of criticism with a plan to pay men to marry Nepalese women who were widowed in the country’s 10-year civil war. Women’s groups are calling the plan humiliating and contrary to human rights.

The Guardian:

Women’s groups have condemned a Nepalese government plan to pay men for marrying widows, describing it as contrary to human rights law and humiliating for single women.

Under the proposal, contained in the government’s annual budget last week, a lump sum of 50,000 Nepali rupees (£388) would be given to men who marry widows.

The government is hoping to better the condition of women bereaved by a 10-year civil war after more than 12,800 people were killed by either Maoist insurgents or the government in the conflict that ended in 2006. But the plan has sparked a furious response from human rights groups who are campaigning to make sure it does not reach the statute books.

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