For Sarita Devi Mandal, proprietor of Mithila Nari Hastakala Centre, managing her home, children, and business at once was not easy. But she had to do it anyway.

Mandal dreamed of being a nurse but she got married in 2003 while still studying in grade 9.

“Before our marriage, my husband ran the handicraft centre in Dhanusha. I took ownership of it after marriage,” Mandal, 49, said.

“After handing the business over to me, my husband's involvement in the work lessened as he was mostly engaged in politics. I had to manage the kitchen, family and the business—all at the same time.”

After 20 years, she has the same routine.

Insiders say that women like Mandal run the business, registered in their name, but are not paid.

“The government has also announced subsidised loans for women entrepreneurs, but it’s never easy to get them even after submitting all the documents,” Mandal said. “It’s even difficult to become an independent entrepreneur here.”

Men take opportunities in the schemes that are meant to encourage women to become independent entrepreneurs.

For instance, amidst the Covid pandemic, when the government announced collateral-free loans through banks, particularly for women, hundreds of fake enterprises popped up across the country. Most of them were registered in the name of women, nonetheless.

In 2020-21, when the economy was hit by the pandemic, registration of new firms—mostly micro, cottage and small-scale enterprises—broke all records to reach an astounding figure of 83,386, according to the Department of Industry records.

In the fiscal year 2019-20, the number of new firms was 48,854.

Insiders say something is wrong somewhere. Companies are known to proliferate in Nepal when people smell handouts in the air as most of the firms were opened by men in the name of women to gobble up the subsidies.

Women are cheated from multiple sides, said Mamta Shiwakoti, an advocate.

Nepal is a state party of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women.

“Nepal’s constitution has sufficient safeguards for women, such as labour rights, equality of payment, rights to ancestral property, and safe motherhood and reproductive rights. The problem lies in implementation,” said Shiwakoti.

For instance, despite the law provisioning citizenship through the mother, it has not been implemented, Shiwakoti said.

“Many big companies still do not pay women equally. The maternity leave provision has also not been implemented,” she said.

“There are many progressive laws for women but they have no effect in society,” Shiwakoti said.

Nepal has a huge pay gap too.

An analytical report on Women in Business published by the National Statistics Office, formerly the Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2021 showed that the share of women workers in any sector is high when the monthly income is small and vice versa.

The share of women workers is 58 percent for monthly incomes smaller than Rs7,600. In contrast, the share of women workers is only 12.2 percent for monthly incomes of more than Rs25,000.

The biggest pay gap between male and female workers is in the "professional" category. In this category, for example, if a male earns Rs23,800 monthly, a female earns Rs12,000.

Even in the “managers” category, which requires competency, if a male earns Rs32,000 per month, the pay for women averages Rs25,500.

The pay gap in the “technicians and associated professionals” category is not so great— the monthly salaries for men and women being Rs24,000 and Rs22,500 respectively. In the “agriculture, forestry and fisheries workers” category too, if a male earns Rs12,167 monthly, female workers earn Rs11,406.

Despite all hiccups, Nepal outpaced all its peers in South Asia in terms of implementing laws and regulations supporting women’s economic opportunities, according to a recent report.

The 10th edition of the World Bank’s Women, Business and Law Index, released recently, gives Nepal 80.6 points out of 100. The index covers 190 economies and is structured around the life cycle of a working woman.

Women, Business and the Law updates its eight indicators structured around women’s interactions with the law as they move through their lives and careers: Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension.

The report said that Nepal's overall score is higher than the regional average observed across South Asia (63.7).

Within the South Asia region, the maximum score was observed by Nepal in closing the gaps between women and men in opportunities and outcomes, ahead of Bhutan (75), India (74.4), Maldives (73.8), Sri Lanka (65.6), Pakistan (58.8), Bangladesh (49.4) and Afghanistan (31.9).

The report said that the rights of men and that nowhere in the world do women have the same legal rights as men in all measured indicators.

Remarkably, none of the 190 economies examined has achieved legal gender parity in the areas measured, and thus no economy receives a score of 100.

In terms of the legal framework, which includes law and regulation, Nepal scored 62.5, the highest in South Asia, followed by India at 60.

The lowest-scoring economies are Bangladesh (32.5) and Afghanistan (20). All eight economies in South Asia score below the global average of 64.2.

Women, Business and the Law 2024 identifies the laws and regulations that restrict women’s economic opportunity in 190 economies.

Data in the report are current as of October 1, 2023.

Economies in the South Asian region perform relatively well in the mobility and marriage indicators, with an average score of 75 and 68.8, respectively.

In mobility, seven out of eight economies in the region have laws allowing women to travel outside the home and internationally in the same way as men. For instance, the application processes for official identity documents are the same for women and men in all economies.

On marriage, all the eight economies have laws allowing women to be ‘head of household’ or ‘head of family’ in the same way as a man, the report said. Six of the regional economies have a specialised family court, five provide legal aid for family law disputes, and four economies have a fast-track process or procedure for family law disputes.

In contrast, no economy in the region scores 100 in the safety, workplace, parenthood, childcare and entrepreneurship indicators.

Challenges remain, especially in childcare (average score of 15.6) and safety (34.4).

The report said that four out of eight economies have an average score of 0 in childcare. This means women in Bhutan, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan do not have access to affordable and quality childcare.

In child safety, Bangladesh is the only economy that has an average score of 0 – the economy does not have legislation to address child marriage, sexual harassment, domestic violence and femicide.