Source: Kantipuronline

Salina Joshi Crusader Against Gender Discriminations

Even if one has not faced any gender discrimina tion in the family, the same would not be true in one’s social life, especially in the context of Nepal. And the same situation would also inspire those people wanting a gender balanced society. This is true of Salina Joshi, a researcher. Brought up in the mixed culture of Dharan, 31-year-old Salina was never treated differently in her family.
"I didn’t even know women were treated differently for being so while I was with my parents. But I was socked to experience it in the process of my socialization," Salina recalls. A Masters Degree holder in psychology from Tribhuvan University, she had chosen her career in the health sector. After completing her two years’ course on Optic Optometry from Sri Lanka, she worked in an eye hospital for two years.

"My job was getting monotonous with the confined duty of prescribing contact and eye lenses. But I needed a change to groom myself," she says. Additionally, regular interaction with her sister who did women’s studies let her know more about the status of women in Nepal. The more information she gathered on the unequal treatments between men and women, she thought of doing something to ensure equal rights for women, abandoning her career in the hospital.

For a break, she also worked in a managerial level in the hospital for about one year, for which she received training on hospital management in India. "But a managerial job also couldn’t fade my desire for fighting for equality," she says.

Finally, she left her hospital job, which made her depressed, as she had to remain idle for one month after leaving the hospital. Having heard of opportunities at the Forum for Women Law and Development (FWLD), an NGO working for women, she approached them. Today, she is a program officer there besides working as the acting coordinator.

Joshi was the lead researcher in Sexual Harassment in Work Place, which is the first and the only national level research on the issue, which highlighted it as a major problem for working women. Similarly, she was one of the lead researchers in Effectiveness of Existing Laws and Institutional Mechanism to Combat Trafficking in Women in Nepal, conducted jointly by FWLD and United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). The research highlighted several purposes of human trafficking from Nepal, other than flesh trade.

She was also the lead researcher in Rapid Social Mapping of Gender Friendly Environment in Workshop, which is currently busy with data analysis.

Besides, she is one of the coordinators in the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) Committee. CEDAW is the international mechanism to deal with discrimination against women.

She also attended training on how to prepare shadow reports held in New York by the International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific, an INGO based in Kuala Lumpur. However, to achieve all these successes, she had to go through several challenges. The discouraging nature of people has always remained as challenging.

"Since women are often treated as second class citizens, most people ignore women’s real problems instead of showing concerns. The same hinders getting facts during research."

Salina topped the batch when she did her secretarial course at New Era. Similarly, among seven countries, her term paper was adjudged the best, which she prepared during her one-month South Asian Course on Peace held by South Asian Forum for Human Rights. All these obviously reflect on her hard work and talents.

All the research projects in which she has worked as lead researcher have always contributed to remarkable changes in the country. "This is because I read a lot, especially materials based on research, which helps me bring out effective results in my works."

However, her efforts don’t end here. Salina is committed to more. "I’ll continue until all forms of subordination existing in our society end."