Large families confined in close quarters and unemployment, insecurity, and poverty, have rapidly increased violence against women. Nepalese emigrants come back home jobless, very often after contracting traveling debts they can’t repay. Girls who stay at home now will have fewer possibilities to go back to school than boys, and many of them will have to adopt the traditional role of caretakers for those with health conditions who had been denied access to hospitals, children that are suffering from contagious diseases due to lack of vaccination this year or those recovering from Covid-19.
Nepal is the third country in Asia with the highest rate of child marriage after Bangladesh and India. After the 2015 earthquake, the numbers skyrocketed, and this new crisis is feared to increase forced marriages even more. Besides, the number of births in hospital centers has halved, and crowded quarantined centers are unsafe for women coming back home from abroad.
The UN Women agency warns about this shadow pandemic that can revert all the past decade's progress.
Monks in Buddhist monasteries around Nepal could lead their everyday life in retreat and complete their exams in August during the heavy monsoon season. The Bodhisattva vow from the Mahayana Buddhism emphasizes compassion for all living creatures. Monks have approached the tasks of alleviating pain during the pandemic through rituals and mantras based on Bon animistic practices to dispel obstacles and a more practical approach in which many young monks participate in food distribution.
After breakfast and morning prayers, monks dispute the Buddhist philosophy every morning in the gompa’s courtyard when the weather allows. Passion and even fights among monks are common. The questioner, mala in hand, stomps on the ground, shouts, and claps with his hands in a dance-like trance to encourage the defendant seated cross-legged to answer whether accepting or refuting his argument. This tradition comes from the Indian style debates, which started in Vihara, Nalanda, in the 5th century CE. It was one of the first attempts at an organized center of knowledge during the Silk Road period in which sage philosophers such as Nagarjuna and Asanga taught.
Kathmandu Lockdown
On March 24th, amidst the spring climbing and trekking season, Nepal's government decides to quarantine the country after the second case of Covid-19 was detected, and the WHO declares the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. Tourism is Nepal's primary source of income, followed by the remittance from the workforce working in the Emirates and especially in India, in which the outbreak spreads at an alarming rate. Without a previous warning, 10,000 visitors get trapped inside the country, and 4 million emigrants fight to cross the borders to come back on their own means. Simultaneously, decade-old border disputes between Nepal, India, and China increase the tension between nations. For four months, the local population struggles to survive without help in Asia's second poorest country.