Female safety

While the Pamtsho case and other sexual assault cases draw a lot of outrage and condemnation, we are not addressing the root cause of the issue.

Bhutan is a small country with a small population, but day in and day out we hear of horrendous crimes against women and even children.

While people come on Facebook to condemn the act it is also on the same Facebook that people can be found boasting about their night hunting exploits when they were younger.

Both in the local lingo and traditional sayings there are a lot of pointers that show women to be inferior to men.

When small boys are growing up they can see older males teasing or even touching their mother, aunties, sisters etc. especially in rural settings and they think this is normal.

As a small and developing country Bhutan is still a deeply patriarchal society and in all honesty women are still seen as fair game be it in rural areas or even in modern offices.

Sexual harassment is tolerated and in most cases, there are no consequences.

Women themselves are not aware of their rights and even if they are they are afraid to fight for their rights.

We have to be brutally honest with ourselves and admit that certain cultural practices and norms allow for harassment of women. A small example is a man dressed as an Atsara going after women during Tsechus and it is broadcast live.

In Bhutan, even today. men do not respect that women have a right to their own bodies and a right to have a workplace free of harassment.

The only way things will change is if we can change our mindset and that can happen in only three ways.

The first is a lot of advocacy and education, second is bringing up young boys to truly respect women and the third is a zero-tolerance policy against sexual harassment in any setting.

It’s odd that men feel they must protect women, since for the most part they must be protected from men.
Abigail Scott Duniway