Interview Subjects

Dear all

These are three women i have short-listed for interview. Please help me decide on who should i interview. I am really confused.

Anuradha Koirala

Anuradha Koirala is the founder of Maiti Nepal, meaning Mothers’ House, which was established in 1994 to rehabilitate and support girls and women who have been trafficked from Nepal to India, against their will, to be sexual slaves in brothels. Besides taking in the girls who have been rescued, she has helped to run workshops for police, lawmakers, and teachers. The survivors themselves are actively educating villagers with pamphlets, street dramas, and songs describing the dangers of trafficking. In addition there are prevention homes in three districts of Nepal where high-risk girls can go. They are staffed with survivors, and they watch for likely traffickers crossing into India with girls. Maiti Nepal also runs a hospice for girls who return with illnesses and are not accepted back in their homes. They are treated with respect here, and are able to grow vegetables and sustain themselves.

Anju Chhetri

Anju Chhetri is the woman behind setting up the first feminist public house in Nepal--ASMITA. It was set up in 1988, at a time when nobody was writing about women’s issues in the Nepali media. As an editor, Ms Chhetri identified issues, and researched and wrote thought-provoking articles even in the mainstream newspapers and magazines. At a time when mass media was largely state-arbitrated, Ms Chhetri and her colleagues escaped the state’s intense vigilance because their magazine was targeted towards women, and therefore, considered relatively harmless. They used the space to be forthright in espousing the cause of democracy, arguing that women could not achieve their specific rights before they had basic democratic rights. Equal property rights for women, the right to abortion, women's sexuality, violence against women, and women's right to health are among the other issues that have been brought to the forefront of national life and to the attention of policymakers, by Asmita.

Chandani Joshi

Chandni Joshi is the former Regional Program Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in the South Asian Region .She has lobbied on behalf of women and their families at major international conferences including the Earth Summit in Rio (1992) and the Fourth World Conference on women in Beijing (1995). She also served in high-level government positions including her role as Joint Secretary and Chief of the Women Development Division at the Local Development Ministry of Nepal. Creating a space for women in the development dialogue, Joshi has worked to give a voice to the disadvantaged and marginalized groups like tribal women, peasant women, migrant women workers, survivors of trafficking and violence, home-based workers, HIV-positive women and women in conflict and disaster situations.