A bit in the news has me thinking about Nepal today, so I thought I'd hop around my desk and put together all the notes I've been collecting on that country for a while for families with connections, or hopeful connections, to Nepal.

Today's new from Nepal is not good. The UN is "deeply concerned" about increasing violence in the southern plains, Nepal's breadbasket. So far, seven people have died in ethnic protests that pit Madhesis people against the the dominance of northerners who are running the show, all but one killed by police.

"We are seeing a very worrying escalation of tension and violence in communities in the Terai," said Lena Sundh, representative in Nepal of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

We'll thank the UN for their concern, but I, for one, am not holding my breath waiting for them to do anything more helpful than file a report.

The Madhesis are closer to the Indian people in looks, culture and geography than to the hill-dwelling Nepalis, and say they are discriminated against in, " parliament, political parties, the army and police, despite being the majority in an area that is home to almost half the country's population of 26 million."

The government is concerned that the situation may escalate, casting the end of the Maoist rebellion which killed 13,000 people in a less than impressive light.

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) has issued a report on "The State of Women In Urban Local Government/ Nepal".

It's available as a PDF, and makes for interesting reading.

Here's a bit:

Societal attitudes view a female child as a commodity to be bartered off in marriage, or as a burden. Some persons considered marrying a girl before menarche an honorable, sacred act that increases one's chances of a better afterlife. As a result, although the law prohibits marriage for girls before the age of 18, child brides were common. According to the Ministry of Health, girls' average age of marriage was 16 years of age. The age difference in marriage often was cited as one cause of domestic violence.

Government officials suspected that organized crime groups and marriage brokers were the primary perpetrators of trafficking in the country. The traffickers usually were from the country, but had links to brothels in India. In some cases, parents or relatives sold women and young girls into sexual slavery. NGOs' unverified estimates were that approximately 50 percent of the victims were lured to India with the promise of good jobs and marriage, 40 percent of the victims were sold by a family member, and 10 percent were kidnapped. NGOs have found that once prevention programs were initiated in a district, the traffickers moved to other areas. Youth displaced from homes as a result of the insurgency were especially vulnerable to being trafficked.

Continued ...