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Nepali Widows’ Access to Legal Entitlements: A Human Rights Issue
- Human Rights Quarterly
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 38, Number 2, May 2016
- pp. 391-410
- 10.1353/hrq.2016.0022
- Article
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Despite legal reforms, Nepali widows face barriers in exercising their property rights. This article provides a qualitative perspective on Nepali widows’ understanding of their rights and their ability to pursue legal entitlements due to widowhood. In-depth interviews and focus groups were conducted with seventy-six Nepali widows, four paralegals, and three key informants. They demonstrate that widows have limited success in exercising their property rights and seeking government benefits primarily because of a dominant patriarchal society, familial traditions, and bureaucratic restrictions. Nepali widows’ continued denial of property constitutes a human rights violation that Nepal’s new government should seek to redress.